Aria to Death

by Nupur Tustin

  “It had better not be,” the soprano hissed at the maids. “It contained the sapphire-and-diamond necklace His Serene Highness gave the Princess for her name day.”

  * * *

  Wilhelm Kaspar raised his head from the letter he had been reading. It was written in a crabbed hand and his eyes felt weary from the effort of deciphering it.

  The offer his correspondent presented was a tempting one—so tempting indeed, that his hand had in the past few minutes reached forward several times for the writing materials stacked in the pigeonholes of his old, scratched mahogany bureau.

  The chill wind entering through the cracks of the window forced him to turn his attention to the stove. He picked up a poker and began absently stoking the dying embers, his mind still on the letter he had received.

  Amelie’s fever, though mild, boded no good, he feared. The Peruvian bark he had been giving her in a cordial mixed with tincture of rose had done nothing to dispel it. If only he could send her to Baden. And there—he glanced over his shoulder at the letter on his bureau—is the very opportunity to do it! But to give over—

  “Wilhelm Kaspar!” The voice at the door startled him out of his thoughts. “I trust I have not come at an inopportune moment.” Fabrizzio entered the dimly lit parlor.

  “No—er, not at all.” The young man was the last person Wilhelm Kaspar wanted to see, but he rose politely enough to greet his visitor by the hand.

  “An acquaintance of mine”—Fabrizzio’s eyes scanned his surroundings as he spoke—“has expressed an interest in your unusual bequest. Has it been assessed already?”

  “It is being done as we speak.” It was no lie. Haydn was on his way to the city, if not already in it. “A possible buyer, you say.” Wilhelm Kaspar gestured toward the green chaise by the stove. It was the most comfortable seat in the parlor.

  “He has made no firm offer.” Fabrizzio inspected the seat before lowering himself into it. “But he wishes to examine it. The sooner he is able to do so the better. He is a capricious man, and his interest in it may soon wane.” The young man paused and looked intently at his host. “Not to mention the other sources of such music in the city.”

  “I would be happy—”

  “I had hoped you might have a score or two available for him to peruse.” Fabrizzio continued to speak.

  He glanced around the room again, his gaze lingering on the sheet of paper on the open writing flap of the bureau. “Opportunities such as this are so rare”—his brown eyes met Wilhelm Kaspar’s—“the wise man does not hesitate to seize them when they come.”

  Wilhelm Kaspar regarded his young visitor in silence. There was a curious persistence in his manner that he did not much like. Nor did he particularly care for Fabrizzio’s pointed insinuation that his bequest was not genuine. After all, from what Haydn had said, the Empress was not so very sure of her own source.

  And if all else failed, he could still fall back on the offer he had just received.

  “I will be sure to consider it—this opportunity you speak of,” he said, leading the way to the door. When Fabrizzio made no move to rise from his seat, Wilhelm Kaspar opened the door, and held it wide open.

  “My age does not permit me to keep long hours. We will meet again soon, I hope. Until then…” He inclined his head toward the passageway outside.

  * * *

  “It is not to be wondered at.” Her Serene Highness, Princess Marie Elisabeth, was sitting up in her bed, the satin coverlets drawn up to her chest. She took a sip from the small bowl of broth on the tray before her. “Clara would insist on having it tied to the rest of the travel cases at the back. She said no highwayman would think to look for it there.”

  She glanced up at the maids standing mutely by the doorway. “The rope was frayed, you say? It is not like Clara to be so careless, but…” She shrugged, turning her attention to her broth.

  “Well, there is nothing for it!” Frau Dichtler turned toward Rosalie and Greta, her hands on her hips. “You must go out again and look for it. How could you not have seen anything? God knows, you were out wandering the streets long enough!”

  Rosalie glanced at Greta, noticing the mulish look on her friend’s face with misgiving. The soprano must have noticed it too for she took a few steps toward them, her voice taking on an ear-piercing shrill tone.

  “Well, go on. Don’t just stand there!”

  “No, no!” Her Serene Highness gestured impatiently with her silver soup spoon. “There’s no need to send the girls out at this hour, Elsa. The trinket box must be long gone by now. And who knows where it might have fallen.”

  “But your necklace—”

  “I knew something of the sort would happen.” Her Serene Highness brushed aside the soprano’s objections. “Didn’t I say so? Clara is most astonishingly stubborn.” She shook her head mournfully. “It is a pity about the trinket box, though. Such a pretty little thing. I shall miss it. It was just like the one you have, Elsa.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “It is a generous offer, is it not?” Wilhelm Kaspar had to raise his voice to make himself heard. All of Vienna seemed to be crowded into the cavernous depths of the wine cellar and its vaulted brick roof reverberated with the buzz and murmur of their voices.

  He took a nervous bite of the pumpernickel bread he had wrapped around a small vinegar-marinated sausage, peered anxiously at Haydn and then cast a quick glance at Luigi and Johann as though seeking reassurance.

  “A little too generous, in my opinion.” Haydn glanced up from the letter Wilhelm Kaspar had handed him shortly after their arrival at the Seizerkeller.

  He set the paper on the oak wine barrel that served them for a table. “All of Amelie’s medicaments and bath cures at his expense in return for a chestful of scores that are yet to be authenticated! What can he hope to gain by it?”

  “It is for his niece, he says.” The lines on Wilhelm Kaspar’s forehead moved to form a slow furrow of bewilderment. “What can he gain other than that? Why, nothing, I suppose—”

  “Unless the music be so valuable,” Luigi interjected, “that the amount he would forego in treating Amelie at his own expense would be a trifle compared with the riches he expects to gain through a judicious sale.”

  Johann took a small sip of his wine. “Who is this physician, Kaspar? And where did you come by him? He is either generous to a fault or, as is more likely, a charlatan of the worst kind. What think you, brother?”

  But Haydn, his eyes fixed on a dapper little gentleman with a dark goatee who stood leaning against the stone counter, made no response.

  “I know nothing more of him than you do, gentlemen.” Wilhelm Kaspar fingered the note unhappily. “This letter here is the first I heard of him.” He raised his head. “I assumed he had heard of my needs through Herr Anwalt.”

  “Herr Anwalt!” The mention of the lawyer drew Haydn’s attention back to Wilhelm Kaspar.

  “He promised to make a few enquiries on my behalf. He said a few well-placed words might contrive to raise sufficient interest in the collection for us to make a quick sale of it once you had examined it.”

  “It was he, was it not, who suggested that the works might belong”—Haydn lowered his voice, aware of the bearded gentleman’s dark eyes darting curiously toward them yet again—“to Monteverdi?”

  “Yes, indeed! Onkel Dietrich must have mentioned his collection to him.”

  “But you yourself had no reason to suspect—” Haydn paused abruptly. Why had the old merchant confided in his lawyer but not his only nephew?

  “How could he have?” Johann began before Wilhelm Kaspar could reply. “It is not as though old Wilhelm Dietrich spoke of it other than—” He cleared his throat, but appeared unable to ward off a desperate fit of coughing.

  Haydn bit his lip. Johann’s words had brought a niggling doubt in his mind to the fore. Had the wine loosened the old merchant’s tongue or had—? He shook his head. Most likely it was the former.

  “Your uncle must have
trusted his lawyer unreservedly to make him his confidante,” he remarked, turning toward Wilhelm Kaspar.

  The musician shrugged. “No reason not to. Herr Anwalt has taken care of Onkel Dietrich’s affairs for as long as I can remember. A more honest man, you could not find. Truly, if he had not the forethought to be armed, I should have lost my bequest the very day I inherited it.”

  Luigi grinned broadly. “A man after my own heart!” He gulped down his wine and hailed the bartender for another bottle. “It is quite the best way to deal with ruffians such as the ones you encountered. It was fortuitous they were not as well armed as he.”

  “And fortunate, indeed, then that he himself was,” Haydn commented dryly. “In what other ways has he been of service to you?”

  Johann turned toward his brother, his eyebrows raised in mild surprise. But Wilhelm Kaspar showed no signs of having noticed anything amiss. He took a deep draught of his wine, and continued: “Why, it was he who suggested I write to you, Joseph.”

  He tipped his wine glass to his lips again. “I only wish I had taken his advice to entrust the scores into his keeping. They would have been safer in his chambers. There is a music scholar—a most persistent fellow—who keeps coming around to the house. Claims his father knew Onkel Dietrich. I do not—”

  “Herr Anwalt suggested you entrust your bequest to him?” Haydn straightened up in his chair, his voice rising to a crescendo that attracted the attention of the sprucely attired gentleman, who still stood by the counter.

  He made an effort to lower his voice. “The music is still in your keeping, I trust, Kaspar.”

  When Wilhelm Kaspar nodded, he leaned forward, his voice urgent. “Be sure not to let it out of your hands until I have had an opportunity to examine it. I shall do it directly I return from Schönbrunn.”

  “But surely, Herr Anwalt—”

  “The music will be safer in your house than in his chambers. And as for this physician of yours”—Haydn reached into his pocket for some banknotes and thrust them into his friend’s hands—“I trust fifty gulden will suffice for Amelie’s bath cure. Tell the doctor you prefer to have the music authenticated before you consider any offers for it.”

  “But…” Wilhelm Kaspar looked down at the bank notes in his hands in bewilderment. “This is much too generous, Joseph. I cannot—”

  “It is much the best way, my friend,” Haydn murmured, his eyes moving from the bar counter to the arched wooden door. The bearded little man in his elegant suit of black velvet was gone. A foreigner? How much of their conversation had he overheard, Haydn wondered. And what interest could he possibly have in their affairs?

  * * *

  “I shall have to examine the works, Your Majesty.” Haydn opened one of the vellum-bound scores the Empress Maria Theresa had handed him and perused the pages curiously.

  He and Johann had accompanied the Prince to Schönbrunn that afternoon and now sat in the Empress’s white-and gold-receiving chambers in the west wing of the summer palace.

  “But at a casual glance”—Haydn raised his eyes—“they appear authentic enough.”

  He gently rubbed his right thumb over the paper. It felt thick and strong under his fingers. He turned his attention to the binding. The cream-colored vellum was unusually soft and the gold trim exceptionally fine.

  Johann reached for the second score the Empress had placed upon a gold stool upholstered in rich crimson and read the dedication within. “The hand appears to be that of a copyist, brother.” He turned toward the Empress, who was still seated at the harpsichord. “As would be quite natural under the circumstances, Your Majesty.”

  The Empress’s finely shaped eyebrows drew together into a frown. “I hope you are mistaken, Master Johann. Dr. Goretti swore to me those works were in the composer’s own hand. I have no reason to doubt his sincerity.”

  “And yet you would have Haydn authenticate them,” His Serene Highness murmured. His eyes drifted toward the portrait of His Imperial Majesty, Archduke Joseph, set into a panel on the wall behind the Empress.

  Haydn suppressed a smile, having glanced up in time to catch the movement in the ornate gilt-framed mirror hanging opposite him. The Prince had complained often enough, as had his Konzertmeister Luigi, of the stinginess of the Archduke’s purse.

  “It is the composer’s identity rather than his hand that I desire your Kapellmeister to authenticate, Esterházy!” The Empress’s tone was sharp, her heavy jowls quivering in exasperation.

  “If I may be so bold as to ask,” Haydn interjected gently, “how much did Your Majesty pay for the scores?” No doubt the purchase had caused a rift between the Empress and her son and co-regent.

  “Pay for the scores!” Her Majesty’s lips protruded into a startled round, blowing her cheeks out. “Why no more than a hundred ducats apiece. But—”

  Haydn hastily withdrew his eyes from the portrait looming over the Empress only to find her large blue eyes inspecting him closely.

  “I am still Empress, gentlemen.” She fingered the gold lace on her mourning gown of black velvet, her tone even. “But in this instance, I am in complete agreement with my son. It was not entirely for my own pleasure that I bought the music.”

  “Her Majesty intends to initiate a revival of opera seria in the capital with the great works of Monteverdi,” the Prince explained without much enthusiasm, his own tastes running to the lighter opera buffa style.

  “Among other things.” The Empress’s eyes were veiled. “And too much rests upon it for me to take the word of the good physician who brought it to me.”

  “It was a physician who brought these works to you, then, Your Majesty?” Johann leaned forward, his voice rising a little.

  The Empress nodded, the skin under her jaw forming loose, fleshy folds under her chin. “Giacomo Goretti. A fine physician, in my opinion, although van Swieten”— she gestured with a well-fleshed but shapely hand in the direction of the ante-chamber where her imperial physician waited —“would have it otherwise.”

  “An Italian?” Haydn enquired, his eyes meeting Johann’s. “And he was only able to bring you these two works, Your Majesty?”

  “With the promise of more, as I am sure Esterházy will have mentioned to you.” The Empress shifted her bulk in the direction of the Prince, who nodded wordlessly. “If these prove to be authentic, we shall purchase the entire collection. They will be more valuable still in the great composer’s own hand.”

  “And he discovered them, I presume, in Venice,” Haydn hazarded. It was where the great master had ended his days, having left the Mantuan court to assume the position of Kapellmeister at the Basilica of San Marco in the city-state.

  “On the contrary. It was here in Vienna that he found them.”

  * * *

  “And what is your opinion, Herr Haydn?” Baron Gerard van Swieten’s faded blue eyes studied Haydn’s features. “Is the music genuine?”

  “It is too early to tell.” Haydn strolled slowly between his brother and the imperial physician, enjoying the pleasantly cool air within the pergola in the privy garden.

  “It is quite possible, I suppose,” he continued, admiring the purple flowers on the trellis. “But one wonders how the works of an Italian master, in his own hand, no less”—he turned to face the Dutchman—“could have made their way to Vienna.”

  The imperial physician snorted. “Stolen, the Mantuan historians would have it, by the imperial family and their soldiers.”

  “But that is preposterous!” Johann exclaimed. “Surely the Empress does not believe that claptrap?”

  “And when would they have had any opportunity to steal it?” Haydn had come to a halt in the middle of the pergola.

  Van Swieten rolled his eyes. “About a hundred years ago, apparently, when the imperial army besieged the city. It is arrant nonsense, of course!”

  His blue eyes held Haydn’s gaze steadily. “I have found no evidence that any music from the Gonzaga court ever made its way back to Vienna when the Em
peror Ferdinand attempted to oust Charles of Nevers from Mantua.”

  Haydn nodded. “And, if it had, there would be no reason for it to have left the imperial library, would there?”

  “Not without my knowledge.” A worried expression clouded the Dutchman’s rounded features. “If there is any truth to the story, it would mean the scores had been stolen from our possession.” He straightened his back. “If that is the case, I am prepared to resign from my position as chief librarian.”

  “They could have been removed at any time in the course of these hundred years.” Johann’s tone was gentle. “There is no reason to suppose the theft occurred under your watch.”

  The Dutchman shook his head. “Very few people beside the imperial family have access to the imperial library. No, Master Johann! The implications of such a supposition do not bear thinking of.” He regarded the brothers earnestly. “Besides, I am convinced Dr. Goretti will prove to be a charlatan of the worst order.”

  “Indeed!” Haydn raised an eyebrow.

  “Medically speaking, he is a quack, gentlemen. An utter quack!” The imperial physician stood before them, hands behind his back, chest puffed out in indignation.

  “His ideas on smallpox are irresponsible to say the least. Rub the infected pus from smallpox victims into the wounds of the healthy, indeed! Why, we would have an epidemic on our hands in no time at all.”

  “And the Empress would wish herself so treated?” Johann sounded incredulous.

  “That it is a remedy the illiterate Turks take recourse to does give her pause.” Van Swieten’s tone was wry. “I have heard of some cases of success with it, gentlemen. But there have been just as many incidents of virulent illness and death as a result. And Dr. Goretti has no satisfactory explanation on the subject.”

  “But rather than let nature choose her victims”—Haydn shuddered—“he would expose us all to his untried remedy.” In a crowded city like Vienna, the consequences of such a thoughtless action would be disastrous. Far better to chance the disease as he had and trust in the restorative powers of margrave powder and barley tea!