The man tied to the chair was hooded, but his head swung around with the jerky speed of panic as Francis closed the door. Francis walked softly across the room, balancing lightly to make minimal noise. He watched the man’s head track him, cocked to listen to every sound.
I could make him scream before Pergen even touched him. Francis stepped down sharply with the heel of his boot and saw the man flinch at the sudden clatter. He held back a laugh but felt his chest relax as the day’s tension flooded out of him.
Oh, yes, this had been the right decision. He’d spent enough evenings at balls and theater performances these past few weeks, always playing the gracious host, the canny—albeit secret—politician. It was time to set aside an evening for himself and his own amusement, for once.
No, not mere amusement—nourishment. Austria needed him more than ever now. The power structure of all Europe hovered in the balance, waiting to be decided at this Congress, and Francis—behind the shielding figure of Metternich—played a game so delicate it could shatter at any moment if he weren’t canny enough to handle it.
If only his uncle could see him now …
“Your Majesty,” Pergen mouthed silently. He bowed deeply, and Francis smiled.
Francis’s uncle Joseph hadn’t known the half of what his minister of secret police had to offer. Joseph had been too frightened to tackle true power, for all his bluster. Yet he’d held Francis up to public ridicule at court, calling him weak, ignorant, superficial …
Old rage seeped up as Francis recalled the countless humiliations he’d endured. But he had been the one to triumph in the end.
Joseph had been so proud of the secret police he’d helped establish, but he hadn’t known any of their own secrets. Even Francis’s own father, Leopold, in his brief year as emperor, hadn’t learned the extent of Pergen’s power. For God’s sake, Leopold had been stupid enough to dismiss Pergen from his position altogether. He’d even abolished the secret police. If he hadn’t died so soon afterward and left Francis to take his place …
Francis remembered the night he’d first found out what power the ex-minister of secret police truly held in his grasp.
He had been almost unimaginably young back then, only just crowned at twenty-five years old and overwhelmed by the responsibilities so suddenly thrust upon him. France and Austria were already at war; radical conspirators threatened the empire at every turn. At any moment, a second revolution could explode in Austria itself, and Francis and his brothers would be beheaded just as his aunt and uncle in France had been, half-naked, bound, and helpless against the mob’s animal fury.
But that night …
He could barely remember what that first girl had even looked like anymore. It had been a girl, hadn’t it? Some prostitute, perhaps—or, no, more likely, some inner-city radical’s brat. Children were the easiest and best, particularly in their formative years, between eleven and fifteen … but he’d only learned that later, under Pergen’s patient tutelage.
What Francis had seen for the first time that night was raw power, offered to him without reserve.
Power to be the man he’d always dreamed of becoming, despite all of his uncle’s taunts and insults.
Power to protect his empire against the radicals who were always seeking to undermine it. Undermine him.
If it hadn’t been for Pergen’s tireless support through all those terrible years, Austria would have imitated France in its bloodthirsty revolutionary madness decades ago. Even now, Pergen’s men reported new plots being hatched in the taverns almost every week.
But when every exposed plot brought Francis fresh nourishment … well, that was sweet justice indeed.
Francis remembered this morning’s outrage, which had come so close to oversetting him. He nearly laughed at the memory—proof enough that he’d spent too long away from his true center.
Why should he care about some English slut’s promiscuity? There were far more important things in life than women and their promises.
Francis could hear the prisoner’s breath panting through his hood as Pergen lit the candles in their star formation around him. The sound made Francis’s pulse quicken.
It was time.
“Now,” Francis mouthed at Pergen, and closed his eyes to receive his fulfillment.
She’d never thought it would feel like this.
Power, cold and thrilling, rushed through Caroline’s veins. She could have lifted great weights or run miles. Tingles raced across her skin, granting pleasure so intense it could hardly be borne.
But inside …
A hole broke open in her chest at her first words. Inside, rising to fill the gap, she felt another presence, as horrifyingly vivid as a nightmare but undeniably real. It rose within her, luxuriating in the transfer of energy, sharing each sensation with her.
She wanted to rip it out to rid herself of the horror. But she would have had to tear open her own skin to do so.
Terror mingled with overwhelming pleasure and choked out a sob around her chanting voice.
What monstrous being was this inside her? And how—how—?
Caroline’s mind blurred into a meaningless whirl of incoherence. She couldn’t think, could only feel her voice coming out without her will, the sensations roaring through her, and thething within her soaking it all in.
In the back of her mind, a warning sounded.
So much power—too much power—Charles …
The thing within her shook off the warning.
The chant continued through Caroline’s throat, unbroken.
The sky was completely dark now. Twilight had shifted into night as Michael’s game shifted its terms around him. Pacing down the Mölker Bastei, Michael caught only shadowed glimpses of Talleyrand’s sagging face in the light from the bright windows they passed. The aging politician’s weight rested heavily on Michael’s arm as his murmured French words streamed into Michael’s ears, calmly and steadily telling his fortune.
“If you wish to continue your pretense, it could be arranged …” Monsieur de Talleyrand dropped his voice to a bare whisper as they turned a corner on the quiet street. “The Great Powers have no love of justice, for all the English ambassadors’ pretense of righteous respectability. But their reputations have yet power over them, particularly with their own people in their home countries.”
A group of men stepped out of one of the nearby houses, bound—from the lilt in their raised voices—for either a tavern or more raucous pleasures. Talleyrand nodded with distant civility as they passed and waited until they were a safe distance away before continuing.
“The English Whig journals will be quick to leap on Lords Castlereagh and Kelvinhaugh if they can be seen to promote theft and corruption abroad. Even the Russian nobles themselves are not enamored of their tsar’s plans for a reunified Poland.”
“No?” The sound of their twinned footsteps on the cobblestones—his own slowed to match the ambassador’s gait—rattled an aural accompaniment to Michael’s racing thoughts. “But the expanded power it would offer for the Russian empire—”
“Tsar Alexander wishes to impress his old tutor, La Harpe, and make Poland a model of representative democracy, freeing the serfs and granting powers which no Russian peasant may claim … and which his nobles will fight bitterly to keep their own underlings from ever gaining. Do you think the great men of Russia will thank their tsar for showing their own serfs such an example so close to home?” Talleyrand’s dry voice carried a sting.
“I see,” Michael said.
“I should hope so. Because if one man were to take the risk of becoming a lightning rod …”
Michael blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The Great Powers will never listen to me, or to any of the Continent’s lesser powers, by choice. But if they were forced by the pressure of public opinion …”
“And how would that come about?”
Talleyrand’s lips curved into a half-smile of anticipation. “If a man—a handsome figure of
a man, I think, with charm and confidence—were to grant interviews to selected journalists …”
Michael took a breath. “I think perhaps you do not know Viennese journalists, Your Excellency. Provocative politics are not exactly—”
“I do not speak, now, of respectable journalists—at least not here, in Vienna. I am speaking of the pamphleteers.”
“The illegal presses,” Michael said flatly.
Fire, screams, the sound of smashing metal …
“Precisely. They are still available, I think you’ll find … even if they run a significant risk of exposure. And, of course, there is also the English opposition press—they have some representatives here, although they lie low when their ambassadors are present. And the Russians …”
“The Great Powers will be furious. Any concessions you hope to gain—”
“Furious indeed,” Talleyrand said, “but not with me. No, I shall step in to assuage, to condole with them, to help them soothe ruffled feathers of public opinion.” He paused. “And yet … I should be grateful. And I believe they would find it difficult, under such pressure, to withhold compensation for Prince Kalishnikoff’s famous losses.”
Michael’s voice came out as a near-growl. “Gratitude might come far too late if the Viennese secret police discovered what I was doing.”
“If they discovered it only after the damage had been done, they could do nothing about it. Metternich and his satellites act under stage lights now, watched by all of Europe. They could hardly afford to expel the public’s hero from the city.”
“But if they discovered it too early …”
“Then I would be shocked and horrified, of course, like every other gentleman of principle.” Talleyrand shrugged. “It is a risk you alone may choose.”
They had completed the circle and arrived again in front of the Hôtel de Ligne. Faint light trickled out of the windows. Talleyrand smiled as he released Michael’s arm. The deep, distorting wrinkles in his face further shadowed his expression as he stooped over his cane.
“Well, Prince Kalishnikoff? Shall we shake hands on it, or shall I make your excuses to our host? I am gentleman enough to wait until tomorrow morning before telling what I know to the police.” Contempt dripped into his tone. “I’m sure you’ve developed your own ways over the years of making your way out of a city unseen.”
“Indeed I have,” Michael agreed tightly. Hiding in a butcher’s wagon …
He’d fled Vienna once already, at the start of his adventures. He’d had time for that when he was fourteen. Time and energy to reinvent himself and start fresh with each new month or week. Michael was thirty-eight now, and he would never have a better chance.
If he wanted a real future and a chance of security in his old age then there was no choice at all.
And as long as he hadn’t any good reason to be sensible …
A reckless grin twisted Michael’s lips. Despite himself, he felt excitement rise, tingling, within him.
After all, when the chips came down and he faced the truth about himself …
When had he ever turned down a gamble?
“Why not?” he said, and put out his hand. “Your Excellency … Prince Kalishnikoff is at your service.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Enough.
Caroline bit her own tongue hard to cut off the stream of words.
Silence rushed into the room and swallowed her. She staggered, reaching out blindly for support. Inside her chest, the alien presence yowled protest, trying to force her teeth apart. She clapped one hand over her mouth and whirled dizzily across the room to the closest seat to collapse.
The presence folded and disappeared, leaving her chest to fill with panic.
And energy.
Caroline’s vision cleared. Lowering her hand from her mouth, she took a deep, cleansing breath.
She felt … strong. Strong and capable enough to climb to the top of the Kahlenberg Mountain outside Vienna or waltz all night long in the Great Hall of the Hofburg. She felt strong and also …
Satiated. Caroline’s mind filled in the missing word with bitter accuracy.
Oh God. This was what Pergen had felt each time he’d fed on her or spoken the words to feed his imperial master through himself …
She was going to be sick.
Caroline stood up, ready to lunge for her bedroom and the chamber pot. Only a faint motion in the corner of her vision stopped her.
Charles. How could she have forgotten? Caroline swallowed hard to hold back the nausea and hurried across the room to where her secretary lay crumpled on the floor.
She blew the candles out around him, breaking the star figure open. “My poor Charles.”
He lay facedown against the carpet, unmoving as she knelt beside him. She took his outflung left hand and pressed it between both of hers.
“Charles? Charles, can you hear me?”
He didn’t speak. His fingers lay between hers, limp and still. Caroline felt for his pulse. If she had let it go too far …
Charles’s pulse beat steadily against her fingertips.
Caroline sighed with relief. She sank down fully onto the ground, letting her skirts crumple around her.
“My poor boy. I did warn you what the effects would be, but you would insist, despite everything …”
She cut herself off, blinking, as she heard the asperity in her own voice. Your sympathy is less than overwhelming, Karolina.
But it was too painful to see him lying there as she had lain so many times. To feel the physical gain in herself that corresponded to his loss and to know it had been accomplished, of all idiocies, by her victim’s own voluntary will, after his irresistible, unreasonable pressure.
After all the years she’d fought so hard to escape …
Closing her eyes, she took a deep, steadying breath.
For heaven’s sake, of course Charles hadn’t believed her when she’d warned him of the ritual’s effects. He was an alchemist, a seeker after scientific wonders—he would have thought himself a weakling indeed to have been frightened off by a mere woman’s stories. She, older and far more experienced, was the one who should have known better. She should have refused regardless of the consequences and thought of some alternate way to retain his loyalty.
Yet she’d been so focused on her own goal, so blind to the dangers he risked, and so flustered by Michael Steinhüller’s unsettling presence and her own panic-infused childhood memories …
Squaring her shoulders, she reopened her eyes. Time to face what I’ve done.
Charles lifted his head slowly off the floor. His straight brown hair hung over his spectacles. His face looked soft and unformed.
“You’re awake,” Caroline said. She set down his hand, drawing back to a polite social distance. “Thank goodness. I’ll bring you wine and food to restore you. Now that you’ve seen for yourself what a mistake this was—”
“No!” Charles said hoarsely. He swallowed and shut his eyes. “That—that wasn’t a mistake, my lady. That was …” He drew a shivering breath.
“Charles, really,” Caroline began—just as he looked up and met her eyes.
The avidity on her secretary’s face shocked her into silence.
“Really,” Charles whispered. “You must teach me how to do that.”
“Untie him.”
The words pierced Peter’s haze. Moaning, he struggled back to full consciousness.
Rough hands brushed against his arms. The ropes around his wrists loosened and fell away. He thought: I should run.
The absurdity forced a hoarse laugh up through his throat, shaking his limp body. Run? He wouldn’t be running anywhere. He couldn’t even walk. Not after …
Convulsive shivering swept up through him, overwhelming the laughter. Peter’s teeth chattered against each other. His arms tried to reach out to cross his jacketed chest for warmth, but they fell back helplessly against his sides, bereft of strength.
The shivers pushed his shoulders inward, tilted
him forward in his chair. He was leaning—losing balance—falling …
He landed on the ground, slamming his cheek against the floor. Light flared behind his closed eyes. A gritty, cold surface pressed against his face through the thin hood. Stone, Peter thought. But he couldn’t make himself care. The chattering of his teeth rattled his skull against the ground.
What use was a cunning escape plan now?
Footsteps walked toward him with slow deliberation. A pause, and then he felt the figure beside him kneel.
“Herr Riesenbeck,” the voice said, with soft precision. “I hope you understand, now, what exactly your position is. Tomorrow I’m going to visit you again, to ask you more questions. We’ll have to hope—for both our sakes—that your answers then will be more satisfying.”
Peter didn’t even try to speak.
Cold tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes as large, capable hands picked him up off the floor and carried him out of the room.
He wondered, for a moment, about the performance that must be going on without him, halfway across the city—the Riesenbeck troupe’s triumphant debut in Vienna.
After all his months of dreams and preparation, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Michael saw the Prince de Ligne’s eyes widen with quickly veiled surprise as he and Talleyrand walked in together to the prince’s salon.
It was indeed small, as Talleyrand had warned, and the fire in the grate flickered so weakly as to barely warm the air. The furniture, gathered in a tight circle around the fire, was all sadly out of fashion—even to the point of decrepitude in a few glaring instances. But the people who sat on that furniture …
Michael saw a famous French poet, a Viennese playwright, and a Russian archduke all sitting together on one fraying couch. The Comte de La Garde-Chambonas sat beside a distinguished Polish general, while a noted Hungarian diplomat sat on one side of the Prince de Ligne himself, and—Michael’s breath sucked in between his teeth at the shock of it—Austria’s own Prince Metternich, the orchestrator of this entire Congress, sat on the other.
An excellent assortment indeed for his purposes.
The general conversation continued without a pause as De Ligne rose to greet his newest guests.
Congress of Secrets Page 14
