“Oh, my poor dear Max! She sings so beautifully! God in Heaven, I’m quite jealous, but what a silly little chit! ‘Tis exactly as you’ve said.”
“I’m afraid so, my love. My little bird is in love again, but this time, at least, the handsome musiker has some genuine talent. I think we shall have some fun, though, you and I. We’ll play a few more games with her and that tall bastard of Vehnsky’s before we bring down the curtain.”
“Yes, my darling, you are always so clever! And if she breeds a girl for you to raise … well, it couldn’t be more perfect.”
The Count frowned slightly as he reached for her hand. “Yes. It must be a girl. If not….”
“Well, my dear sir, a boy has his uses. Send him to Italy and let the Italians cut themselves a pretty new Manzoli! But let’s don’t worry anymore about that. You and I are together again, aren’t we, and that’s all that really matters. Come inside now, my dear lord, and let’s open this splendid wine before it gets any later.”
The Count drew her into his arms. Shortly afterward, the door to the secret room closed behind them with a soft click.
Chapter 16
Below in the street, her lover’s friends were serenading, musicians from Prince Vehnsky’s, disguised tonight as an ordinary pick up band. Klara opened her window and leaned out. The cat sat on the sill beside her, gazing down with interest into the street.
"Most charming, gentle musicians! Who sent you?"
"An ardent admirer of your sublime talent, Fraulein Siber, who wishes to remain anonymous!"
"Fraulein Silber! Close that window! You mustn't encourage them."
Here came Liese, full of complaints and scolding. Klara turned to face her. The play they’d devised was going according to plan.
"Why ever not? Their music is charming and such a compliment to me."
"Of course it is, my lamb. But isn't Count Oettingen already annoyed enough, without you encouraging whoever it is that sent these fellows?"
"Oh, Liese! How will he know? Unless you or that creeping old spy Hermann tell him."
"Oh, dear! Don't be so cross with poor Liese and good Hermann! We're only looking after you! Now, here, let me close the window."
"Oh, Liese! Just let me hear one more song.”
"Mistress, all the heat is going out."
"Well, if they can endure to stand outside and sing, I can certainly do them the courtesy of listening."
"Mistress!"
"Go away, Liese!"
"One more song." Liese shifted her plea out the window to the musicians below, "and then you young fellows must go! Truly! Singerin Silber will catch her death of cold otherwise. She has already been ill once this winter!"
"Must you obey the old woman, peerless Singerin?"
"I fear I must."
Another song was sung, while Liese rushed away to put more coal in the stove. Every bit of warmth in the room had flown out.
"To bed now!" Unceremoniously, she pushed Klara away and slammed down the window shut.
Klara, shivering, did as she was told, climbing straight away into her alcove bed. Once inside, she drew the curtains.
"Good night, then, Liese!” She tried to sound meek and resigned.
The first part of the plan had gone like clockwork. In her room, beyond the curtain, she could hear Hermann stumping heavily in with another sack of coal for the wall stove. There was a crash as he dropped it. He complained to Liese: "Thank God that rabble has packed off at last! Be careful with I’ve just brought, but this is costing Fraulein Silber a pretty penny, what with leaving the window open in the depths of February to hear some rag-tag play. As if she don't get enough music, what with singing every day, rehearsals, lessons, operas! Grosse Gott!"
"Hush! She's probably listening to every word."
"Why else would I be talking? Only way to get advice listened to."
Sitting, legs folded beneath her, feather comforter tugged over her shoulders, Klara smiled. Later, when they both had settled, she got out of bed, lit a candle, and began to put on a pair of leather front-laced stays.
Next, she slipped on a warm brown petticoat and a checkered flannel bodice. Over this, she'd throw a brown broadcloth cloak, an old one that had been bought for her, long, long ago when Oettingen had taken her from the convent. She’d given it last year to her new maid-of-all-work. This young servant, like the concierge's son, was vulnerable to bribery. Wearing this cloak, if she could sneak past Hermann, she'd be able to go downstairs without drawing attention.
Of course, Klara was well aware that asking the servants to help could work both ways. Servants might collect more money by betraying her, but she was desperate enough to be with Akos to dare anything. Besides, Carnival was well underway, and the spirit of masking was abroad in the cold air.
A muslin cap with warm side flaps and a chin tie would complete the disguise. No prima donna, but only a servant girl sneaking out to meet a boyfriend would slip from the old apartment house, Der Erste Rosenbaumhaus, on the Judenplatz. Quickly, Klara finished dressing. Then she went to the window to watch.
It was snowing a little now, a few fat flakes drifting past. Occasionally a carriage, torch men trotting ahead, came along. Drunks, too, stumbled past, their wandering way lantern-lit by patient urchins. Sometimes dark, cloaked figures passed, arm in arm. The sight of these maskers gave Klara a thrill.
Soon, she would be one of them!
It was close to a long hour later when she heard singing. Liese had promptly gone off to sleep. Klara knew because could hear the familiar purring rattle of her snore through the wall. Hermann would have gone to sleep, even quicker, behind the panels of his front hall cabinet. Day, for both of them, began before dawn, with lugging water, fetching fuel and stoking fires. They needed their sleep! It was what she’d counted upon.
***
The lovers sat by a creaking wall stove, holding hands. The tavern room in which they had taken refuge had a certain practicality. There was noise, a crowd, and much meeting and greeting. They were anonymous, although, to anyone enough interested to look, it would be clear that they were not what they played at – mere servants – for Akos wore a sword beneath his cloak.
They'd been on fire for each other, but now that they were here, it seemed best simply to hold hands, to talk. They’d thirsted for time together as much as for love-making. They were by the stove where it was warm, together in a high backed seat. Close together, even through the smells of cooked meat, bodies, pipe smoke and spilled beer, she noticed the cool green forest scent.
"What is that fragrance?"
"Ah! You aren't supposed to notice it! At least, not consciously."
"What?" Klara gazed up at his handsome, but now flushed, face. "Is it a love potion?"
"In a manner of speaking, but you aren't supposed to know that."
"So, this risking my neck tonight is because of magic?” Klara laughed, a little nervously. “Are you really a Hungarian sorcerer, like Liese keeps saying?"
"What do you think?" Akos smiled. When she didn't answer, just studied him gravely, he said, "I'm a serious fellow of eight and twenty who ought to know better than to dump perfume all over himself like a lovesick catamite."
"But that is not a woman's perfume. It smells – masculine."
"Thank God!" She saw he was distinctly uncomfortable at the direction the conversation had taken.
"It does create an air of mystery, though."
"Only mystery? Not desire?"
"Is it supposed to create desire?"
"Perhaps it only works on the one who wears it."
He caught her close, pressed a kiss upon her, sweet and searching. The mysterious scent rose as he held her tight against his hard chest. She caught a musky note.
They were flying together, flying over a great black pine forest, hand in hand.
They walked upon wind, through a velvet night, while all around were stars.
Above their heads, hung a golden crescent….
Klara jer
ked her eyes open, sat back quickly. He smiled down at her, all male, embarrassment gone.
"Not fair!" She only breathed the words, staring into his topaz eyes. "Your potion! It – it works."
Eyes locked and he drew her close again, to drown in another kiss. All the time, her mind was reeling.
Was he Danger, like every other man she had known?
Was he a Master, like Max?
Was he a Puppet, like Giovanni?
Would he hurt her? Betray her?
Was she flying to her destruction, like a moth to flame?
As their lips parted, Klara knew it was long past time for her to go home.
***
They had come around a corner and were just entering the Judenplatz, when out of the darkness, two athletic looking men all in black came purposefully towards them. The lantern boy that had been guiding them turned away. His light went out as he began to run.
"Stay behind me!" Akos pushed her to one side, threw back his cape and revealed the sword.
"What is this?" Her question was answered at once by the singing note of drawn steel. Before she could cry for help – from the nearby apartments, from the wandering night watch, or any gentlefolk who might be abroad – the first man rushed at Akos. The other, dashing past, seized Klara.
She shrieked, spun and twisted in a wild attempt to escape, but gloved hands held her, stifled her cries. Although she fully expected it, he made no move to drag her into the nearby alley, but seemed content to hold her where they were, out of the way of the whirl and clash of the fight in the street.
Klara bit the hand that covered her mouth and stepped back hard on his booted foot. He retaliated by reaching under her cap and grabbing a handful of her hair. Yanking her head back, his other hand came swiftly to her throat.
"Careful, Singerin!"
His fingers tightened, an action which, to her, was as bad as a threat of rape. Terrified, Klara stopped fighting. The hand, as she'd hoped, relaxed a little.
There was a gagging groan and then a thud. The ring of steel on steel ended. The attacker had fallen to the cobbles.
"Let her go!" Akos shouted, turning. Klara saw the gleam of his sword in a sudden flash of light as someone peeped out a nearby window. "Or, by Christ, you’ll get the same."
The thug pushed Klara down and then ran. Akos dashed forward, seized her hand and pulled her upright.
They were both gasping for breath at the door to her building. Only here, beneath the sheltering overhang of the street door, did he speak.
“Are you all right?”
"Yes."
Just a single word and Klara began coughing. The man had almost, but not quite, closed her throat. There was the sense of having escaped serious injury, but it was all so strange! Through the coughing and the thunder of her still pounding heart, a question popped into her mind.
Would an ordinary footpad have had so much delicacy, have known exactly how to intimidate her, to keep her quiet?
"Oh, Akos! That man! He didn't hurt me – though – dear heaven – he could have."
"Well, the other one had murder on his mind."
His hand shook, but in a business like fashion her lover wiped his sword on a handkerchief and then sheathed it.
"Thank every saint in the calendar I wore this tonight. The other had a dagger, too, but the way he tried to lure me close made it obvious. We've just been very lucky."
Klara leaned close against him, still breathing hard. "Do you think you killed him?"
"Yes, and we must hope no one says anything. Go in at once."
"He called me Singerin!"
"They knew who we were. They were waiting for us."
She shuddered, and he embraced her. From somewhere wafted the awful smell of blood.
"This was a bigger risk than I imagined. The Count is having you watched."
As the front door creaked open, Akos pulled up his mask. The lamp held aloft revealed the pale face of the doorman's son.
"Fraulein Silber! I heard some krak in the street."
Klara wondered if he was their betrayer. His narrow face seemed, for the first time ever, to have a shifty expression.
"Men were fighting," Klara said. "Thank the Blessed Mother we got past them. Now, Albert, have you taken care of Hermann as I asked?"
"Indeed I have, Fraulein. He's had more hot rum than he's had in weeks."
As they entered the downstairs hall, whispering, Akos disappeared into the darkness. By this time, Klara was so anxious she didn’t regret his departure. Albert fumbled at the keys, and found the one that would open the door to the inner stairway to her apartment.
"Do you need my help up, Fraulein?"
"No. Thank you." Klara studied his face wondering. Then she thought that if he had told the Count’s men about her plan, why hadn’t they simply kept her from going out?
Shaking now, she made her way upstairs, unlocked the first door and slipped past the cabinet where Hermann snored. Unlock and lock again, and she entered the parlor. After a slow creep over the Turkish carpet, she was standing once more inside her bedroom where she, for the last time, locked herself in.
Everything was quiet. Apparently no one here was the wiser.
Who, she wondered, now slipping out of the drab clothes, had attacked them? The only possible solution was that they were Max's men, bent, she thought, with an icy thrill of fear, upon murder!
Chapter 17
"I can hardly believe this. You are never out this early," Klara said. "You despise morning calling."
It was half past ten, quite impossibly early for any fashionable person to be abroad. She and Max were together in his coach, with the Ottingen Hounds on the door, drawn by four mane-tossing Hanoverian grays.
"Ah, but this is special, Maria Klara. One premier nightingale should always be properly introduced to another and Madame Wranitzsky has been away from Vienna for a long time."
"Madame Wranitzsky? Here in Vienna?" Klara experienced a nervous tingle. When Max had first taken her under his wing, he'd brought her to the opera several times to hear that legendary voice.
"Yes. She came, in disguise – which I naturally penetrated at once – to Prince Cobenzl's house two nights ago. Tired of gadding around Germany, she says.Not really a very lucky turn for you, my girl, if she chooses to stay."
Klara chose to ignore his thrust. "She has left the Elector Frederick?" She knew that Madame Wranitzsky had left Max for the Elector Frederick. Klara had been seventeen when this had happened, and she remembered that Max had been quite ill-tempered for a long time afterward.
"Perhaps she has. She didn’t say. Frederick’s a very devil of conceit, of course, but he has an excellent ear, as well as excellent taste in women. For the last two years, she tells me, she's spent a great deal of time at a villa he gave her near Bratislava. God knows why. When she's in the East, she told me she sings for the Princes Esterhazy, Szecheny, and Vehnsky. It seems that in spite of an audacious personal life, she's kept her health. She favored us with a couple of songs, and she is much as she was, a glorious song bird."
Klara studied him, that ever so familiar antagonist. A slight smile curved his lips. As a matter of course, he was hoping to upset her with high praise for another Nightingale.
"Her voice is darker and deeper than when she left us eight years ago. She can now sing far into contralto range, although everywhere her control and phrasing is as it was, entirely magnificent."
Klara thought to herself, what does it matter if Wranitzsky stays or goes? I will be at Komorom with my brave Akos….
"Where is Herr Wranitzsky," she asked, hoping to turn the subject, "or is he a fiction?"
"Ah, I met him once, years ago. A violinist, if I remember right. Quite a pleasant fellow, but that complaisant gentleman fell by the wayside years ago. The lady has, I believe, pensioned him off. I've heard that he lives in Dresden, teaching music and raising a child he imagines is his."
Klara smiled. A grand prima donna's story if ever there was o
ne! Nevertheless, even after all these years, she retained the greatest respect for Madame Wranitzsky's art. That powerful, agile voice had never failed to move her to tears. Hearing her sing had compelled Klara to hours of wearying practice and had shown her how much she still had to learn. It hadn’t really mattered that the lady's private life was not one she wished to emulate. And, after all, she thought bitterly, these days, who am I to call the kettle black?
"Well, I hope to hear her sing. I shall never forget her singing that old French piece. Platee, about the frogs, performed on a whim of the French ambassador. In those days I barely knew any of the language, but I wept handkerchiefs full because her voice was so beautiful."
"I remember." Max studied her tenderly. "So wonderfully susceptible, my lovely Maria Klara. I assure you, 'tis is a treasured memory, holding you to my heart and drying your innocent tears."
Klara looked away. Of course, she remembered it.
A handkerchief in a gloved hand touching her tears, the embroidered waistcoat she'd been gathered against, the lingering kiss upon her forehead. How often, even before the ultimate seduction, had he had presumed upon her trust!
This morning Max had arrived at her door ever so early. Alarmed, she had formally offered him breakfast. To her intense relief, he had accepted. As she poured coffee, he politely asked her to dress and "make a call" with him. Relieved that this didn't appear to be the beginning of some kind of erotic raid, she’d obeyed.
A friseur, who had come in Oettingen's train, had presented Klara with a pretty new wig. Now, beneath a dove gray cloak trimmed with mink, she wore a dress of pale lavender trimmed with white floral embroidery. The colors suited her, although she felt the dress looked better against her own rich auburn hair than the wig. Still, Max always insisted that when she went out with him, she must cover her hair.
"Your hair is for me. I don't want every fool in the world gaping at that precious mahogany treasure."
Nightingale Page 20
