Congress of Secrets

by Stephanie Burgis

  Peter had just enough energy left to slam his knee into the small of Michael’s back. With a grunt of pain, Michael went limp beneath him. Peter found himself grinning fiercely, almost laughing with elation. He’d only fought in stage-fights since he’d been plucked from the streets of Prague by Paul Périgord. Apparently, though, not all of his childhood skills had faded. Peter leaned forward to push Michael down hard against the filthy cobblestones, even as he slid a quick glance backward. All he had to do was hold the older man down until Grünemann caught up with them, and then …

  Michael’s elbow jerked up in a fast, angled arc. Peter doubled over in agony.

  The older man twisted free in one quick motion. He shoved Peter aside and scrambled to his feet.

  Tears of pain stung Peter’s eyes, but he threw himself forward. With all his strength, he grabbed hold of Michael’s closest leg and jerked. Michael’s arms windmilled as he flailed for balance and lost. He crashed back down to the cobblestones. Grunting with effort, Peter lurched forward and grabbed the other man’s hands, pulling them behind Michael’s back at an excruciating angle. He heard a gasp of pain hiss out of the older man’s lips.

  “There,” Peter panted. “There! Are you repentant yet for what you did to us?”

  “Repentant?” Michael’s voice sounded thin and cracked with pain. He took a strained breath, and Peter braced himself to withstand pleas, curses, and even bribes …

  But what emerged from Michael’s throat instead was something Peter hadn’t expected, incongruous but impossible to mistake: laughter.

  Michael gave himself up to hopeless laughter as he took in the earnest drama in the younger man’s tone. “Repentant?” he gasped. “Good God, man, of course I am. What else did you expect?”

  “Well …” Riesenbeck sounded chagrined. “I should hope so.”

  “You have me pinned down, I’m about to be taken away to suffer God only knows what tortures—”

  “That’s your own fault!” Riesenbeck said, so quickly that Michael knew he must have touched a nerve. “You chose to put us in danger to follow your own ends, and now you’re only facing the natural results.”

  “And you wonder whether I’m feeling repentant?” Michael shook his head in disbelief as his laughter finally trailed off in the darkness of his final evening as a free man. “What do youthink?”

  “You’re bluffing,” said Riesenbeck. “But I know better than to be taken in again by any of your stories.”

  “So what exactly do you expect from me now? A villain’s speech of rage, cursing everyone in sight before he jumps off the cliff or the castle tower?” Michael sighed and lowered his head to the ground. The cobblestones should have been rough against the raw, reddened skin on his cheek. Luckily—or unluckily—they were so covered by slippery mud and horse muck that they were almost soft. If it weren’t for the stink he would hardly even mind being there.

  Now that it was all over—now that he’d lost the gamble, lost everything—Michael found himself oddly calm. Twenty-four years had been a good, long period of escape from the secret police in his home city, hadn’t it? He’d had a good run between the night he found his master’s shop in flames and this night, when he’d rubbed shoulders with the rulers of all Europe.

  And he’d told Caroline he loved her, a braver act than he’d performed in a long time—ever since that first night of escape and abandonment. Lying here in the muck on the cobblestones, he was glad to remember that he had at least done that.

  Better yet, he hadn’t even revealed to Riesenbeck which carriage had been his aim. Caroline could still escape unharmed tonight as soon as she realized he had gone. All in all, this was a far better night than that first one had been.

  Still, it seemed a pity to close a glorious adventure with a scene of cheap melodrama at the end.

  Michael lifted his head from the filthy cobblestones and strained to turn until he could see Riesenbeck out the corner of his eye. “I’m not really a villain from one of your plays, you know. I was only trying to survive, as you are now.”

  “By using my company.”

  Michael nodded painfully. “I used what was available. But I do genuinely regret that you’ve been drawn into all of this. I thought I’d been careful not to be spotted. You should never have heard of me again.”

  Riesenbeck shook his head, his voice grim. “Nothing you say could convince me to let you go.”

  “I didn’t expect it would,” Michael admitted. “But I’ve been realizing, lately …” He tried to shrug, but failed. “I wanted to apologize, regardless. For my own sake.”

  Riesenbeck looked back searchingly. His words, half-whispered, reached Michael’s ears. “If you knew what awaited me if I’d failed tonight …”

  “I have a fair idea, I think.” Michael remembered Caroline’s choked-out story of the hell her childhood had become. Because of him.

  How many people had suffered because of him? Exhaustion swept through him at the thought … and at Riesenbeck’s jerk of astonishment.

  “In case you wondered,” Michael added wearily, “I didn’t know any of that when I first came here. Even I am not so ruthless that I would have knowingly put you and your company at risk of supernatural tortures.”

  “But …” For the first time, Riesenbeck’s voice softened, as confusion crept into it. “How do you—?”

  “They certainly aren’t common knowledge, it’s true.” Michael snorted. “Even the most radical pamphleteers never dreamed of that. If we had …”

  “So you are a pamphleteer!” Riesenbeck said. “That’s what … it … told me, but I wasn’t—”

  “I used to be a pamphleteer.” A bitter twist pinched Michael’s mouth. “Back when I still had ideals to publish.”

  “I met a pamphleteer, my first night here,” Riesenbeck said. “She wasn’t what I’d expected. The most amazing curling dark hair and big, dark eyes—what?”

  “Nothing,” Michael said. But he smiled wryly, against the filth on the ground.

  It was good to know that Aloysia had made a conquest.

  Oh Lord, Aloysia and Kaspar. Two more loose ends he’d left on this trip. With luck, when he didn’t come to check the pamphlet in two days as promised, they would be sensible enough to assume the worst. Aloysia probably would, anyway. She—

  “I saved her from the police,” Riesenbeck said. “I didn’t realize who she was, but they took that as proof that I must have been your accomplice.”

  “Ah.” Michael sighed. “I see.” Not such an amusing twist, after all.

  “That was when I learned better.” Riesenbeck’s voice turned from wistful to grim. “You may not be a villain, but I’m no hero. I can’t afford to be.”

  “Who can?” Michael gritted his teeth as burning cramps added to the pain in his pinned-back arms. “Do you think you might let me stretch my arms for just a moment?”

  “I’m no fool.” Riesenbeck’s head turned away again. “I’m only waiting for the policeman who was with me. I don’t know why he’s taking so long …”

  “Perhaps he doesn’t care.” Michael tossed out the words flippantly but was startled by the sudden jerk Riesenbeck gave to his arms—as if all of Riesenbeck’s muscles had tightened at the thought. Blinking, Michael automatically played the new hand he had suddenly been dealt. “He certainly didn’t bother to put much effort into the chase, did he?”

  “He will come.” Riesenbeck spoke the words with the intensity of a prayer. “He will!”

  “And then?” Michael said. “What have they promised you for capturing me? Privileges for the rest of your company? A contract for—”

  “I’ll be free,” Riesenbeck gritted. “They’ll let me leave Vienna.”

  “Knowing what you do?” Michael let out an involuntary choked laugh. “Good God, man, don’t you know anything about life offstage?”

  The hold on his arms tightened to sheer agony. “You know nothing about this!”

  “I take it you’ve met Count Pergen—”

/>   “Who?”

  Michael rolled his eyes. Between the pamphleteers this morning and Riesenbeck tonight, he was feeling his age far too acutely. “The former minister of the secret police,” he said patiently. “And, despite official statements to the contrary, still their leader. He also happens to be an alchemist.”

  “Oh.” Breath hissed out of Riesenbeck’s clenched teeth. “It—he—kept me masked. I never heard his name.”

  “Regardless. You’ve been exposed to horrors that would shock the rest of the empire and all the members of this Congress. Are you really such an innocent that you think they’ll let you go free after tonight, to spread the word of what you’ve gone through?”

  He felt Riesenbeck shiver. “They will let me go. That was the agreement. That—”

  “Oh, and you can certainly trust an agreement with a power-mad alchemist who’s tortured you once already.” Michael rolled his eyes. “How foolish of me to even suggest otherwise.”

  “You bastard!” Riesenbeck’s voice trembled. “You don’t know anything about it.”

  “Perhaps not,” Michael agreed. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t simply hand myself over to them. I would at least make an attempt to escape.”

  “Some of us care about other people,” Riesenbeck said tightly. “Some of us have responsibilities we can’t walk away from as easily as you.”

  “Fair enough,” Michael said. “And yet—”

  “Here he comes.”

  “Ah.” Michael sighed and laid his head back down on the cool, slippery muck. “Never mind. I might have known.”

  He hadn’t really expected to win over Riesenbeck at this late stage in the proceedings. Persuasion had only been a reflex he couldn’t seem to stifle after so many years. Perhaps he’d still be trying to shift the situation to his own advantage even as he was thrown into a prison cell … or worse.

  The thought made Michael’s chest tighten with a flutter of sudden, animal panic. He quashed it with an effort.

  It was too late for any new schemes or hopes of escape. There was no point wasting his precious final moments in contemplating future horrors that he couldn’t prevent. The only thing he could do now was focus on the fact that Caroline would escape.

  That was enough. It had to be.

  Riesenbeck stood up and yanked on Michael’s pinned-back arms to pull him off the ground. Michael gritted his teeth at the pain as he clambered awkwardly to his feet. The muck still plastered against his raw face felt excruciatingly cold in the chill breeze. Still facing the line of carriages, he couldn’t see the man who approached them, but he heard Riesenbeck’s voice behind him, hoarse with anxiety.

  “What took you so long? I thought you’d never arrive.”

  “You don’t seem to have required me.” Footsteps approached, and then the voice spoke again, closer. “Let me see his face.”

  Riesenbeck pulled Michael around, necessitating an awkward shuffling of position that left Michael facing the policeman in the faint illumination from the nearest carriage lamp and Riesenbeck standing behind him, his hands clamped around Michael’s wrists. Michael set his jaw and met the policeman’s gaze in the darkness without expression.

  “Well.” The policeman smiled blandly. “Here he is, indeed. A pleasure to meet you, Herr …?” He trailed off invitingly. When Michael didn’t answer, he shrugged. “Never mind. I’m sure we’ll discover your identity soon enough. Come on.” He spoke over Michael, aiming the words at Riesenbeck. “Let’s take him around to the back quarters and stow him in a cell.”

  “But …” Riesenbeck’s voice faltered. “Aren’t we taking him directly to your master? Finding him was the whole purpose of—”

  “It may have been your whole purpose, Herr Riesenbeck, but it certainly wasn’t his.” The policeman’s smile tightened. “He may have been pleased to gift the emperor with a talented troupe so desperate they would work for free at tonight’s gala, to save His Majesty’s coffers and capture a revolutionary in the bargain … but for himself, at the moment, he has rather more important prey in mind than one more minor seditionist.”

  “But—”

  “He is on the emperor’s business tonight, and I can assure you: he wouldn’t relish any interruption.”

  The emperor’s business.

  Nausea rose in Michael’s chest, gagging him. His cloak of detachment dropped away in an instant of hideous revelation.

  “It’s too late for riddles,” Riesenbeck said, behind him.

  “It’s not a riddle,” Michael said. His voice came out cracked, like all his comforting delusions. Had he really been fool enough to believe they could be true? Or had he somehow known the truth all along? “I know exactly what he means.”

  Caroline.

  She had been trapped inside the palace with the emperor and Pergen, while Michael had run. And failed. And abandoned her again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Caroline directed a freezing stare at Count Pergen. “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, but I don’t care to find out, either. I’m leaving now.” She turned, head high, and stalked toward the door. Two steps, three steps …

  “I think not.” The emperor’s voice brimmed with quiet satisfaction. “Perhaps you didn’t notice, Lady Wyndham, but I locked the door behind us when I entered.”

  Caroline came to a halt, staring at the door handle. She hadn’t faced the emperor as he’d entered; he could have locked it all too easily. If she tried the door and it was locked, she’d look a fool and forfeit the appearance of cool confidence; but if he was lying and she didn’t even make an attempt …

  She pressed her lips together and crossed the last few feet in two quick steps. The handle refused to move beneath her hand.

  “Very sensible,” Pergen approved in German, from across the room. “But then, you were always my brightest subject, Karolina.”

  “Enough.” Caroline turned to face them both. Cold panic bubbled up within her chest, but she kept her voice steady, her left hand gripping the stem of her wineglass. “I demand to know the meaning of this strange prank you’ve chosen to play. You cannot imagine the British embassy will tolerate such mistreatment of a peeress of the realm.”

  The emperor’s narrow eyebrows rose. “Mistreatment of a peeress of the British Empire? Indeed, no one would ever dare take such an act lightly. But the arrest of an Austrian native citizen on suspicion of conspiring against her true government? Well, that is an action no ruler could condemn in these perilous days. Particularly …” He smiled and toasted her with his wine glass. “Particularly when it can be proven that she’s lied to all her English acquaintances these past twenty years at least, and no doubt taken in her poor deluded husbands as well.”

  Caroline stared at him. “Are you mad?”

  “Mad? I think not. I believe when the facts of the case are disclosed to the public, your government will be both grateful and deeply relieved by our actions … particularly as the possessions and wealth of a known traitor are invariably surrendered to the Crown. Your former friends, of course, will no doubt be shocked and horrified—but only by your outrageous audacity and their own gullibility in accepting you as one of them.”

  Caroline tried to speak. No words would emerge from her throat.

  The emperor regarded her quizzically. “Do you not agree with my assessment, Lady Wyndham?”

  Caroline gathered up her scattered wits. “If my lands and wealth are turned over to the British Crown, you’ll have none of them for yourself. Why forfeit a fortune only to exact some paltry revenge?” She stepped closer, fighting to keep her tone as sweetly reasonable as the emperor’s own. “If you release me now, I’ll leave Austria within the day. You’ll be safe from any schemes of mine, and your treasury will be the richer by tens of thousands of pounds. Why—”

  “Your concern is touching,” the emperor said, “but sadly misplaced. I cannot imagine the British government being any less than generous when we relieve them of such an embarrassment. I feel co
nfident they will agree to share your wealth with us quite willingly.”

  “But—”

  “Moreover, you seem to hold an entirely false impression of me.” The emperor stepped close to her and breathed his last words directly into her ear. “Why on earth would I desire you to leave Austria?”

  Caroline stared into his triumphant face and felt her rippling panic stilled by cold certainty.

  There would be no chance of negotiated escape. She had lost … and she would be forced to pay, over and over again, for the wound she’d inflicted to the emperor’s precious pride.

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way to accept your fate, in time,” he whispered.

  Caroline gathered up the last of her shattered confidence. She reached up to stroke his cheek caressingly. He leaned forward …

  And she spat directly in the emperor’s face.

  “You are worth even less than your lackey,” Caroline snapped in the Viennese German of her youth. “Pergen is a monster, but you ride on his back to enjoy his leavings. What exactly do you think that makes you?”

  The emperor staggered back, scooping a handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped off the spittle from his nose and cheek, still staring at her. His thin lips worked, but no sound came out. Had no one ever dared speak so to him before?

  Pergen stepped forward, and a wave of cold air swept around him, brushing against Caroline’s skin. “That,” he murmured, “was most unwise of you, Karolina.”

  The emperor shook himself and stepped away, his narrow face contorted with anger. “You know how to deal with her,” he told Pergen. “Lady Wyndham …” He jerked a mere caricature of a bow. “By the time I see you later, you will be ready to apologize. Of that I have no doubt.”

  Caroline only looked at him. Her whole body was trembling with rage and fear, sending rippling waves through the red wine in her glass, but she met his glare with a gaze of icy indifference.

  She had never given up in all her years of imprisonment. She would not give him the satisfaction of witnessing her surrender now.