by Magnus Flyte
Heinrich and Gottfried’s mother had made the brothers promise on her deathbed that they would do whatever it took to hold on to their inheritance. She had also made them promise that they would employ a surgeon to surgically stab her corpse in the heart before she was put into the ground. (She had the common Viennese fear of waking up in her own coffin.) It had cost three hundred euros. They had done the same thing for their father, too, although the bullet Father had put through his own brain had taken most of his head off.
Their estate had been in their family since Archduke Ferdinand had conferred it on the von Hohenlohes in 1570. Land and an estate that, sending his mother spinning in her grave, would be sold to an American entrepreneur in a matter of months if Heinrich wasn’t able to turn things around. The American entrepreneur had made his fortune in infomercials. According to Fortune magazine, the American was “the Emperor of Infomercials,” a phrase that had made Gottfried apoplectic.
“They call this man an emperor because he has sold collapsible colanders and nose hair clippers?” his brother had fumed.
“They call him an emperor because he has sold a billion collapsible colanders and nose hair clippers,” Heinrich had explained. “Also zirconium jewelry, plus-size swimwear, robotic vacuum cleaners, a device that allows you to hang wallpaper very smoothly, a brassiere that can be inflated or deflated—”
“We are descended from not one but two Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights,” Gottfried interrupted, lifting his chin. “They fought in the Crusades.”
“And they fought valiantly and well.” Heinrich knew the story went faster when you played along.
“You’ve seen their armor in the Neue Burg, the dents, the scratches. And this is what you propose as our course of action?”
The thought that his own brother looked down on him twisted Heinrich’s stomach, which was already doing battle with a combination of goose liver, Zimtstangerle, and rum-soaked cake frosting.
Gottfried was not only the heir, the scion of their house, but he was the gifted one, the one with brains and talent and charm. Even his epilepsy was considered a sign of his nobility, having been inherited through the Hapsburg line. A line that also carried notable examples of insanity.
Gottfried planned on having children as soon as he found a woman who met his breeding standards, which involved dental records, genealogy, a lengthy questionnaire on Austrian history, and a 5K timed run. And Gottfried intended his eventual sons to inherit the von Hohenlohe estate, as they had, and their father before them. But the estate needed to be saved, first.
Gottfried had become a rider at the Spanish Riding School and Heinrich had taken a job—his forebears would have shuddered at the word—as a consultant with a pharmaceutical company, telling people that his family had a long connection to medical innovation through Philippine Welser. But the truth was neither of the brothers was as interested in Philippine as they had been in their lineage of Teutonic Knights. Heinrich’s contract was to provide “public relations assistance,” but in reality they had hired him for his connections in Austrian society. As a descendant of the old aristocracy who had attended the best schools (where his mediocre marks were interpreted as a sign of patrician restraint, not dimwittedness), he could weasel his way into conversations with high-level Austrians anywhere and sniff out any developments that might be interesting to his employer. They called it “research,” but it was really gossip, which came naturally to Heinrich.
Then the company had come to him, and after praising his discretion and effectiveness, had asked for a very delicate service to be rendered. When they mentioned the sum that they were prepared to remunerate, he had felt his prayers had been answered.
He had agreed to provide such services. There was an EU official to be gently bribed to pass some legislation beneficial to the company, then a little off-the-books banking business in Switzerland. A sensitive negotiation made over a cotoletta at Bice in Milan. Always just gentlemen doing business, of course. As the need for tact and discretion had increased, the rewards had kept pace. But so had the risks.
This latest assignment was not just gentlemen doing business. Since Gottfried was the one so rabid about holding on to their inheritance, Heinrich had damn well asked him to help. Which may have been a mistake. Was certainly a mistake. Yes, things had certainly gotten out of hand. Gottfried’s fantasies had a way of taking over things. Heinrich had some difficult choices to make now.
Heinrich swallowed a second Punschkrapfen, then nervously checked his upper lip for traces of pink frosting, as he saw the slim (damn him!) silhouette of Gottfried making his way into the restaurant. Gottfried got all the women: beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated women who slept (Heinrich imagined) in between silk sheets and whose well-tended bodies were lithe and dexterous and who whispered naughty things in educated voices. Nina had refused to sleep with Heinrich, so the last act of sexual congress he had enjoyed had taken place with a middle-aged Laotian prostitute in a 15th district brothel boasting a selection of “internationally themed” boudoirs. The “America” room had been decorated with chuck wagon wallpaper and gingham upholstery. It had been necessary to keep his eyes tightly shut while he screwed, which defeated the purpose. You kept your eyes closed when you fucked your wife, not your mistress. Not that the prostitute counted as a mistress, but still.
Heinrich’s feelings for his brother were as layered as a Viennese pastry. Love, fear, jealousy, hatred, admiration, and resentment. Heinrich suddenly remembered how Gottfried, as a child, would order a Dobostorte in a café and proceed to dismantle it, casting aside chocolate and buttercream and cake to eat the only part he liked: the slivers of caramel.
Yes. That was what Heinrich had to do now. Turn his mind from all those layers of feelings and focus on the one that was most useful. The one that would get them closer to their goal.
There was work to be done. They would do it together.
The Tenth Muse
• THE TRUE STORY OF •
Elizabeth Jane Weston, Poet
by
Harriet Hunter, PhD
CHAPTER THREE
In which I reveal exactly what
I did after I died.
Y es, dear readers, there I was, in my coffin, having officially died in childbirth and unofficially by my own hand.
I have thought, from time to time, that I should write a short book on how easy—relatively—it turns out to be to escape from one’s own coffin. It would be a bestseller in Vienna. Of course, some modern coffins are made out of metals like aluminum or steel, and in that case one’s goose would be quite cooked, or asphyxiated as it were. A very painful route.
It is possible that I ran out of oxygen before I freed myself, and another person doing what I did would not have succeeded. My chest hurt at one point quite dreadfully. But I believe my methodology was quite sound and is another example of how well I think under pressure. Six feet of dirt pressure in this case.
My coffin was made of wood, and the pressure of the earth above it crushed an egress around my midsection. They had buried me with my child. The child was dead, truly so. I moved the small body off my chest and removed my heavy dress until I was wearing only my linen shift. I took the crucifix from around my neck and used it to enlarge the hole, packing as much earth as I could within the coffin. I ripped a piece of skirt from my dress and made a loose bag of it around my head in order to keep the dirt from falling in my mouth and nose. When it was possible, I stood up, my arms above me, thrusting myself out of the hole. I leveraged my foot on the coffin and rose to a height where my hands were able to break free of the ground. I could feel cold air on my fingertips.
What a sight it would have been, if anyone had been there to see it.
I had not been buried long. The earth was still fresh, and crumbly. I pulled myself free. It was night. I stood there, covered in dirt and some blood where the wood of the coffin had scratched against my skin. Shivering in the night air.
I did not know what to do nex
t, so I walked home, across the graveyard and then through the narrow streets, slipping into the shadows and hugging the walls whenever I heard footsteps approaching.
At my home, all was still. I thought about waking Johannes. He would scream. They would all scream. And run from the house. What could I do? What had I become? This was well before zombies had entered popular culture, please remember. I thought I might be dreaming.
No. I knew.
I knew I had been wrong. My stepfather had not poisoned my body against childbirth. He had poisoned me against death. He had found the tonic for immortality. The Elixir of Life! If you think masses of people have tried to crack the formula for Coca-Cola—think again. The Elixir of Life was sought for a thousand years by crazy alchemist and king alike—though not by a single woman, I’d like to point out. Had Kelley even known what he had done? How could he? I had never died—or tried to die—until now.
Also, if my stepfather had known, he would never have shut up about it. The man didn’t talk to just angels—he talked to anyone who’d listen. I mean anyone. One-legged beggars ran from the man in the street.
I crept into the house. I could hear Portia coughing her wracking cough from her room. Portia. Portia had wept over my grave. Portia should know that I was still alive. That I would never leave her.
And then the coughing stopped, and the house was still and most terribly silent. I went to my daughter’s room.
Portia was dead.
I cannot say exactly what happened next. I know one part of my brain continued to behave as perfectly and wonderfully as it had ever done, for later I found myself with clothes, a cloak, a pair of shoes, a knife. Some money. But I was grieving for my daughter, and my grief was perfect and wonderful, too.
I left Prague. I wandered a very long time. I hid, and I learned, and I waited and I planned. And I lived. On and on and on, I have lived.
You would think that my grief and longing for my daughter would have lessened over these many years—these centuries. You would be wrong to think so. She is my light in the darkness. Portia. Waking or sleeping, she is my dream.
TWENTY
“Vienna as dull as ever?” asked Nico in the taxi. He had insisted on taking Sarah to his favorite place for dinner. She had agreed, since it had become immediately obvious that she needed to separate Alessandro and Nico, who disliked each other as much as they adored Sarah, and perhaps for that reason.
“Why does the little person think he can break into my apartment and make fun of my sofa?” demanded Alessandro after Nico made a crack about pink being the new black. “Is not pink, is rosé. And why he wipe his hands on my towel? No one touch my towel but me. That is why I put out the guest towellinos.”
Having achieved enough détente to get Nico into a taxi before Alessandro threw him into a boiling pot of gnocchi, Sarah gave the little man the short version of her adventures: Bettina’s disappearance, the theft of the laptop, the stolen galleon, the murder/suicide of Gerhard and Nina, and Adele’s testimonial to the scientist’s skill.
“A moment, please,” Nico said. “That galleon. Did it have a secret compartment?”
“How did you know?”
“You forget, I watched it trundle down Rudolf’s table. Sometimes he challenged people to find the secret hiding place. You found it?”
Sarah told Nico about the drug.
“I don’t think Bettina knew it was there. She’s an avid clock collector, so maybe this was some sort of bribe. She called it an ‘unwelcome gift.’”
“Tell me more about this Bettina person.”
“She’s brilliant; she’s frightened; Adele said she’s paranoid, but Bettina does get hate mail”—Sarah shrugged—“so maybe her paranoia is justified. I don’t know much more than that.”
Nico pondered this, brows furrowed, fingers tapping on the cab’s armrest.
“What happened in London?” Sarah asked. “Did you get what you needed for Pols?”
“No,” he said. “I’m sorry, Sarah. The whole trip, it was like someone was one step ahead of me. There’s hardly a decent powder to be found in London. And we have a leaky time problem in Prague. Another dead man.” Nico told her about Jan Kubiš, adding, “Either hell portals are busting out all over or the Fleece has been found. I rather think the latter, because of all the missing alchemical ingredients. I believe someone is using the Fleece’s secrets to bring people back from the dead. My question is: why?”
“Um, my question is: how?” Sarah said. “Because that’s impossible. I don’t mean that’s ‘weird,’ I mean that it’s impossible. I’m willing to believe that alchemy was an early form of science, and that perhaps the early alchemists unwittingly stumbled upon things of incredible significance, but that’s going too far. Saint John? Jan Kubiš? Those people are dust now. Bones and dust.”
“Yes. Don’t misunderstand me, I am not talking about resurrection. Both of the men appeared in the place they are said to have died. Nepomuk in the river, and Kubiš in the church crypt. As if they were wrenched from the past at the moment of their, well, passing. As if time were being bent. And that is not impossible. Einstein did not think so. String theorists do not think so.”
“But to move an actual person from one time to another . . .”
“For that you need a portal.” Nico nodded. “Or maybe a really, really big magnet.”
“You sound like Mesmer.” Sarah shook her head.
“Franz Mesmer?” Nico smiled. “Knew him in Paris. He cured my mistress’s chronic yeast infections.”
• • •
Nico’s favorite place turned out to be a Heurigen, or wine bar, in Heiligenstadt. Sarah had always longed to visit Heiligenstadt. It was the place where Beethoven had spent many summers, escaping the heat of the city and communing with nature. Just as in his day, rows of neat vineyards still looked down on narrow cobblestone alleys of ancient houses surrounded by green fields. Sarah had seen engravings of Heiligenstadt from Beethoven’s era and though of course there were changes, it was still quite recognizable, especially the leafy little square in front of the village church. A couple of wizened old men in fedoras were smoking pipes on a bench under the trees, eyeballing a pair of shapely young ladies passing by with miniature pinschers on brightly colored leashes.
Beethoven’s most seminal visit to Heiligenstadt had been in his darkest moment, in 1802, when his deafness was becoming apparent.
I would have ended my life—it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.
It was here that Beethoven had chosen life over death, Sarah thought.
“I like this one,” said Nico, leading her under an awning into a long, narrow cobbled courtyard of a Heurigen. Rough wooden tables and chairs balanced precariously on the stones, and waitresses in dirndls brought pitchers of wine to customers.
Sarah had condemned Gottfried as pretentious for dressing in Austrian Tracht. But is it pretentious, or even kitsch, she wondered, if it’s not done for effect, but just because that’s the way it’s always been done? Perhaps she would find out. What with Adele’s perspective on Bettina and Nico’s appearance, she had decided to postpone her departure, and in the taxi had made a date with Gottfried to tour the Spanish Riding School tomorrow. She would try to discern what he thought about his brother’s possible larcenous tendencies.
Sarah and Nico sat at a small table in the corner, under the grape vines trellised over the courtyard. Tables of locals laughed and gossiped over carafes of icy, lemony Grüner Veltliner. Some of the windows of the Heurigen were still the old bubbly hand-blown leaded glass. She ran her fingers over one of them, wondering if Beethoven’s fingers had also traced its surface, having a drink with friends. It would be nice to see Beethoven happy. It would be nice to have a drink with him, take a walk in the countryside afterward. Picnic, Luigi?
“That the galleon was here surprises me,” Nico said. “It suggests a link. Either Bettina Müller
is Moriarty—”
“She’d have to be pretty busy,” said Sarah. “Nanobiologist by day, thief of all things alchemical by night?”
“Yes, it suggests nimbleness to an unlikely degree. Perhaps Moriarty sent the galleon to her in order to harness her skill. If she could analyze the drug inside she could reproduce it. I’d really like to talk to her.”
“Get in line. The drug seems to stimulate the vagus nerve, which seems to temporarily reset the immune system. The effects fade, or did in my friend Renato’s case. Do you have any idea of what might be in it?”
“No, but I know who gave the galleon to Emperor Rudolf,” said Nico. “Philippine Welser. She might very well have had Schlottheim build a little compartment inside it to hold medicine for Rudy’s many ailments. So it wasn’t just a clock or an automaton. It was a giant pillbox.”
“But the effect on me was crazy. I was hearing voices. I mean, my voice projected upon other things.” Sarah decided against describing the multiple orgasms.
“You do not have an autoimmune disease, so it merely stimulated an already healthy vagus nerve, causing hallucinations, a feeling of warmth, and usually a significant arousal of the . . .”
“Yes,” said Sarah. “So maybe Philippine came up with an early form of steroids, which work only if you keep taking them and can have consequences for the rest of your body. Like Renato and his stripes. But it’s still serious medicine. It wasn’t placebo effect stuff, you know. It was a drug.”
“I understand, but you should know that this modern idea that one drug should work the same on different people—that’s not medicine, it’s commerce. There’s no knowing how it would affect Pols. Still, I’m glad you finally appreciate Philippine’s genius.”
