by Magnus Flyte
Sarah was so angry she could hardly speak.
“Where is Max? I should at least be able to face my accuser.”
“I’m sure he’ll deny it. He doesn’t like having to do these things himself. He asked me to fire you and send you back to Boston.”
Sa coaysmoke rah’s mind reeled.
“I don’t have a drug problem, Miles,” said Sarah, trying to sound calm. “This is all a ridiculous mistake.”
“Perhaps,” said Miles. “But Max is right about one thing. Lobkowicz Palace does not need this kind of embarrassment. Imagine if this got into the papers. I was just putting the finishing touches on our press release. The museum is set to open in a few weeks. We’re hosting a gala opening event. The president of the Czech Republic, the prime minister, the German ambassador, the French president, all the members of the Order of the Golden Fleece. This is a serious job, Sarah, not a summer camp.”
“I don’t need a lecture,” Sarah said, standing up. “If Max fired me then that’s that.”
“Sit down,” Miles said. “The decision isn’t entirely up to Max, although he seems to think it is. But actually the Lobkowicz Foundation—the governing board of the museum—has a say in the hiring and firing of staff.”
“So who’s on the Foundation, Miles? You?”
Miles shifted uncomfortably. “They are willing to defer the decision to me. With certain provisos. I’ve decided not to take Max’s recommendation to fire you. We have a time crunch problem and so far your work has been exemplary. Also, frankly, I don’t think he’s the best person to be in charge of day-to-day operations here at the palace. So I am overriding Max’s decision. I would advise you to focus on your work and not on your . . .” Miles coughed.
“Absolutely,” said Sarah, through her teeth. “It won’t happen again.”
“Good,” said Miles. “We need to focus on what’s in front of us.”
Ah, thought Sarah. But what is in front of us, Miles? What’s this all about?
“I believe in your commitment to the material,” Miles said. “But I’m afraid I’ll need a signed statement from you. To cover us legally, you know.”
Miles handed her a typewritten sheet. She glanced over it, then looked across at him. “ ‘Max gave me ecstasy’? ‘Max is an unstable personality’? These are the ‘provisos’? I can’t sign this.”
“Then here.” He handed her a plane ticket. “Petr has already packed your things. You’ll be escorted out of the palace directly to the airport.”
Sarah felt anger rise red in her face. Did he think she was so naive that she couldn’t recognize the smell of a rat when he held one under her nose?
“This isn’t about guaranteeing my behavior,” Sarah said. “This is about the Lobkowicz Foundation wanting to throw Max under the bus. It’s blackmail.”
“You were caught by the Czech police having sex in a public place,” Miles said grimly. “Max told me that you are unstable, violent, and possibly a drug addict.”
“Which you are willing to overlook,” Sarah said, taking up the paper in front of her, “as long as I sign this? And how will my indicting Max help you with your insurance, exactly?”
“I will send you home,” Miles said, standing up now. “Immediately.”
“Great.” Sarah folded the paper and tucked it into her jeans pocket. “I’ll just hold on to this, though. A little keepsake from the palace. I’ll make sure Jana gets it back to Max, or maybe Nicolas can deliver it for me. Max hasn’t been ousted yet, has he? I mean, he’s the Lobkowicz around here, so I’m guessing that if he can fire me, he can fire you, too. You want me to book you a seat next to me on Delta?”
Don’t move, Sarah told herself. Don’t blink. Stand your ground. Unlock the knees. Center your balance. Be prepared for a fight. Max never told Miles to fire me. This is all coming from somewhere else.
Miles sat down in his office chair. Sarah waited.
“You misunderstand me,” Miles said, after a long moment. “I’m trying to protect you, Sarah. Of course, if yo
u feel uncomfortable signing the letter, I will do what I can to talk Max out of his decision, and see what I can settle with . . . all the rest of it. But I don’t want any more . . . problems.”
Sarah smiled.
“There are a lot of things to get done,” she said. “Before the opening. I expect that I’ll spend the rest of my time here at my little workstation, doing my job. Don’t you think that’s the best plan? Just forget all about this and focus on what’s in front of me, like you said. This collection will make a wonderful museum. It’s really such an honor.”
Sarah turned and walked out of the office. She wasn’t sure if she had saved her ass, or achieved only a temporary reprieve from having it handed to her. Either way, she was sick of being jerked around.
TWENTY-SIX
Sarah had some serious adrenaline going. It was either attend to archival work or challenge Daphne to some kickboxing. Better to work. She had outmaneuvered Miles for the moment, but it was going to be important that she actually be the dedicated scholar she was. She was here to work. And now that she had seen Beethoven himself, listened to his voice, heard him belch and chew and fart, she felt even more connected to the objects he had once touched. With hands that she actually—incredibly—had seen. The idea that Ludwig could have seen her was still too weird to really take in. And why had he whispered “Immortal Beloved”? He couldn’t have been talking to her—could he? She shook off the thought. It was ridiculous.
Sarah headed upstairs to her workstation. She could hear Bernard singing to himself in his Rococo Room, and Suzi’s laughter from the space she now shared with Delft china, but she met no one. Confront Suzi? No, Sarah was pretty sure she was right and that Miles had not spoken to her. Best not to get Suzi involved.
Her things appeared to be just as she had left them, the long tables covered with boxes and papers, filing cards, “Do Not Touch” signs. Her tools: gloves, magnifying glass, plastic slipcovers, etcetera, were all neatly laid out. The most precious objects she had already moved to the climate-controlled glass cases where they were locked up when she wasn’t actually handling them. Prince Lobkowicz had purchased a good deal of sheet music in his day, and since much of it had either never been published or was long out of print, it would be a definite draw to musicologists and serious musicians. But even the unwashed masses that would eventually pass through the palace would have plenty to gawk at: Gluck’s manuscript for his opera Ezio, Handel’s Messiah (densely revised and orchestrated by Mozart himself), Haydn’s Opus 77 String Quartets (a commission from the 7th to the composer that was never finished), and of course, the Beethovens.
Performing parts for the premieres of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies in the master’s hand, another copy of the Fifth with LVB’s corrections and alterations. The Opus 18 String Quartets with LVB’s notes for the first public performance. An acknowledgment from Ludwig of the stipend Prince Lobkowicz had allotted him. The 7th had provided Ludwig with more than just money. He had given the composer the use of his own private orchestra. Probably a lot of good free dinners. And, if the drug-induced vision held any truth, he had given him something else . . . for Sarah knew that the limping host of the dinner party could only have been the club-footed Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowicz. There had been an air of intimacy between the two men, some sort of tacit understanding.
Sarah shut her eyes and tried to remember the sequence of events. Beethoven had taken a pill, she remembered that clearly.
What had the prince said about it? He had asked Ludwig if he had taken it, if it had helped.
He had asked if Beethoven could hear.
And Beethoven had said yes.
Sarah opened her eyes.
Apparently Lobkowiczes had a long history of giving people drugs.
There was evidently more, much more, between the composer and his patron than had previously been discovered.
Sarah picked up the box that contained what had been found so far of th
e correspondence from Beethoven to his patron. She couldn’t be totally sure, but she was fairly certain that most of it had never been properly documented before. There might be enough material for a book. If they ever let her back in the palace after the opening.
Of course, the most famous letters of Beethoven were the Immortal Beloved missives, and the so-called Heiligenstadt Testimony, the letter Ludwig had addressed to his two younger brothers in which he confessed his loss of hearing; defended his behavior; railed, raged, talked of suicide; and swore allegiance to his art. A good deal of the rest of his surviving correspondence concerned business, household affairs, petty grievances. The personal letters that had been documented weren’t terribly riveting. The most common closer he used was in der Eile—“in haste”—and his punctuation, spelling, and handwriting were fairly atrocious. He made a lot of really bad puns. He would start off a letter calling the recipient a “rascal” and end with calling him his “dear friend.”
Sarah pulled on her gloves and started going through the correspondence between Luigi and Prince Lobkowicz again. At first glance she had not seen anything especially unusual, but now she had something to look for. Was there a reference, however oblique, to some kind of pill or drug?
Sarah paused over a letter, undated, stained a tea brown and torn at one corner.
My health is very bad but for now I will only say that I am by that Ietter for knowing that your prodigious key will soon emerge from the heavy skirts of your noble house and once more sing notes of wonder.
“Prodigious key” sounded like a typical LVB jab at his patron’s member. The 7th prince did have ten or eleven kids. Nothing mysterious in any of it, and yet . . . there was something . . .
The sound of the dinner gong rang loudly from the first floor. Sarah placed the letter back in the box, removed her gloves, and took a deep breath. There was a soft tap on her door.
“Yeah, come in,” Sarah called.
“Oh, marvelous, you’re here!” Eleanor Roland called out, gaily. “I felt just wretched, leaving you all alone with the dark princeling, and then, rather nervous, because I haven’t seen you since. Suzi said you weren’t feeling well?”
“Just a headache.” Sarah shrugged. “Probably allergies or something. Who’s cooking tonight?”
“Douglas,” Eleanor chirped, widening her eyes. “I’m predicting bangers and mash, or fish and chips. The English, you know.”
• • •
Miles was not at dinner. With his absence, and without the glowering presence of Max, the academics loosened up considerably. Sarah, self-conscious at first, was soon reassured that none of the other academics knew about her brush with the police and near firing. Evidently both Jana and Miles were keeping their own counsel. She looked around for Suzi but didn’t see her. Moritz lurked under the table, feeling free to beg without his master around to rebuke him.
There was a lot of good-natured, or mostly good-natured, teasing around the table. And a new addition: Fiona Upshaw, a delicate blonde with a heart-shaped face who had come to curate the Delft china collection. Sarah was also introduced to Janek Sokol, a thin and elderly Czech scholar who spoke in perfect, if accented, English. Janek had spent the day at Nelahozeves. His interest, he told Sarah, was in the library.
“I’m using the latest technology to explore it.” He twinkled at Sarah. “A wheelbarrow. And Miles has promised me the use of a slingshot for the top shelves.”
Sarah laughed and complimented him on his English.
“Ah, yes, I have been living in Washington since 1990. And before, I studied English secretly, here, with a few friends. There was a time, my dear, when even speaking Czech here could be considered a political act. Our children were forced to learn Russian.”
“Janek works for the National Archives,” Eleanor chimed in. “The Berlin Document Center.”
“Which in 1994 was moved back to Germany,” Janek explained. “But we have everything on microfilm in the States. And now German researchers have to come to the U.S. to be able to study Nazi documents, because the Fatherland limits access. Privacy laws, they say.”
“Is that what you are looking for here?” Sarah asked. “Nazi documents?”
The Czech scholar laughed. “No, this is vNo, thisacation for me! I’m hoping for love letters. Recipes for soup! Sixteenth-century court gossip. I have always been fascinated with the reign of Rudolf II. It is a private passion. My good friend Miles has been so kind to let an old man come and poke around.”
Sarah excused herself to greet Suzi, who had just entered the kitchen. Suzi wrapped her up in a brief but bone-crunching hug.
“Are you okay, girl?” Suzi whispered in her ear.
“Just embarrassed.” Sarah smiled slightly. “I’m sorry I was such a mess.”
“Girl, that was a freak show.” Suzi punched her lightly in the shoulder, and continued whispering. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m no angel, but you can’t mess with all this crap they got over here. Who knows what they lace it with? Ground-up bones or something. Anyway, I’m glad you’re better, ’cause I’ve got news for you. You’ve been replaced.”
Sarah’s stomach took a quick dip down to her knees.
Suzi pointed with her chin at Fiona Upshaw, now giggling at something Douglas was telling her. “I’m in love,” Suzi sighed. “I’m in love with a woman who loves china.”
“Love is strange,” Sarah agreed solemnly, although she felt almost giddy with relief. And really, love was strange. Take Max, for instance. No. She was going to try to get through the next half hour without thinking about Max. Wherever he was. Where was he?
Sarah took a seat between Eleanor and Bernard, who were full of plans for their outfits for the planned costume party.
“Who are you going to be?” Eleanor asked Sarah. “You have to pick a painting.”
“I’m thinking of going as one of the dogs,” Douglas called out, setting down a huge platter of lamb curry in the middle of the table. “Sarah, love, be my Polyxena.”
“Daphne is going to be Polyxena,” Bernard said. “Someone should go as her husband, Zdenek, the 1st Prince Lobkowicz.”
“Miles would make a good Zdenek,” said Suzi, with wicked innocence. Daphne busied herself with the curry, a little smile on her cool lips.
“Did they have a happy marriage, Zdenek and Polyxena?” Eleanor wondered aloud. “Or was it one of those terrible arranged things? Does anybody know? Daphne?”
“A very happy marriage,” Daphne said, her normally clipped and frosty tones softened a little. “There are many letters between de two. He called her his ‘golden princess,’ and she addresses him as ‘my king.’”
“Polyxena was an expert politician,” Janek commented. “A very clever and resourceful woman. And it was through her influence—her interest in music and art and literature—that the Lobkowicz collection began. The letters are indeed fascinating.”
“There is a gift from Rudolf II to Zdenek and Polyxena,” Moses Kaufman, the decorative arts expert, piped up. “An ebony altar. Lovely example of pietra dura.”
“Yes, Rudolf brought Florentine artists to Prague.” Janek nodded. “He assembled some of the most fascinating and learned men of the day around him. Painters, alchemists, astrologers, printers, publishers, architshers, aects.”
“Tycho Brahe,” Sarah said suddenly.
A toast to Brahe. That’s what Prince Lobkowicz had said to Beethoven, in her vision. In reference, it seemed, to the pill or drug or whatever LVB had “taken.” But that was absurd. Tycho Brahe had been dead at least two hundred years before Beethoven’s time.
“Indeed.” The Czech scholar smiled approvingly at Sarah. “Brahe was a friend of the mathematician and numerologist John Dee, who traveled to Prague in 1583 or thereabouts. Dee sold Rudolf two mysterious collections of writing: the famous Voynich manuscript, currently at Yale University. It has never been decoded. And another, a book of alchemical formulae Dee claimed to have copied from the Aztecs. But we have only the rumors of this bo
ok, references, allusions. No one has ever found a copy.”
“Tycho Brahe.” Fiona leaned forward across the table. “I’ve always found him fascinating. Did you know he lost his nose in a duel and made himself a new one out of copper? And he kept tame elk? And he had a dwarf servant with supposedly clairvoyant powers.”
The mention of a little person made Sarah think of Nicolas, and the pillbox he had given her. A pillbox shaped like . . . a copper nose. That was weird. Miles had said that he had Petr pack up her things. She wanted to make sure the box was safe, and she excused herself, racing down the stairs to her room.
Petr had indeed, it seemed, packed up all her belongings. Sarah unzipped her duffel. Yep, all her clothes, neatly stacked. Even her thongs had been folded into tiny triangles. Sarah dumped the contents of her backpack out on the bed, frantically riffling through them.
And there, incredibly, it still was. The little copper nose pillbox. Tycho’s pillbox? Tycho’s . . . nos
e? She slid the nose sideways and opened the box.
There was something in it. A piece of paper, the size of a fortune inside a cookie. Sarah opened it and recognized Max’s distinctive handwriting.
2 a.m. Be SAFE.
A warning? A recommendation?
No, Sarah realized. It was an invitation. Max was planning on breaking into Miles’s safe tonight, or rather tomorrow. Two a.m.
Sarah decided the best place to hide an object was somewhere really dumb and ordinary, so she tossed the pillbox into the plastic zip bag where she kept all her bathroom stuff. As she jogged up the stairs, she tore Max’s note into tiny pieces. I should switch to coffee, she thought, entering the kitchen. It was going to be a long night.
TWENTY-SEVEN
She had dragged dinner out as long as possible, downing espressos while encouraging everyone else to drink up the Roudnice red, so that they’d all be sound asleep when she and Max began prowling. But she was the one who felt sleepy. It had been a long day, a long week, a long summer. She was exhausted, and the walls of the windowless room hummed gently in a very lulling way. She closed her eyes for just a second, then startled—had she fallen asleep? What time was it? She looked at her phone: 12:27. Better set the alarm, just in case.
