Aria to Death

by Nupur Tustin

  “What is it, lass?” He tipped his head at the palace gates down the street. “Is more wine required? I have a few crates to spare, if that is the case.”

  Rosalie shook her head, feeling more tongue-tied than ever. She approached the wagon, picking her steps with care. “It is just—” she began hoarsely, then cleared her throat. “I should like to get Greta something for her name day. A brooch or a small locket. Perhaps, even a necklace.” She smoothed down her apron. “Greta is uncommonly fond of necklaces,” she added.

  It would look most odd if, having decided to buy a locket or chain, she picked out a fancy necklace.

  “Why, lass, you had your chance today! Sabina has every kind of trinket a girl could want, and yet you bolted as though the devil were at your heels!” Gerhard’s blue eyes narrowed as he studied her features. “You have some other reason for wanting to go back there, don’t you? What is it? What harebrained notion has taken hold of your mind now?”

  Rosalie clutched the edges of her apron. This was going much worse than even she could have imagined. If only Gerhard had not chosen this very moment to suspect her motives. It was her own fault, she supposed. Her opposition to meeting Sabina had been so great that now her eagerness to return to the milliner’s establishment must seem suspicious.

  She swallowed. “I have obtained some—”

  “You have not stolen anything from His Serene Highness’s household, have you?” Gerhard put his meal away and climbed down from his perch. “You had better return it. No matter what you may have heard, Madame Chapeau does not traffic in stolen goods.”

  “I have not stolen anything.” Rosalie’s chin came up. Goodness gracious! What kind of person did he take her for? “I had no money to spare this morning, but Frau Dichtler just gave Greta and me a gold gulden to share between us…”

  She spread her hands wide and lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. It was such a small lie, surely she had no need to even mention it in the confessional.

  “No money! Why, didn’t you say so at the time, lass?” Gerhard’s blue eyes had such a depth of kindness in them as he gazed down at her, Rosalie felt tears welling up in her own eyes. She looked hastily down.

  “Too proud to mention, it were you?” Gerhard laid a kindly hand on her shoulder, it’s warmth seeping through the fabric of her thin blouse. “I suppose I can respect that. Well now, when would you like to go, then?”

  “In a day or two, or whenever it is convenient for you,” Rosalie said, raising her head. It could not be today for all that she still had an hour left of her half-day.

  Why the thought hadn’t occurred to her before, she didn’t know, but she had only the vaguest idea of what the necklace looked like. She would need to learn its design from Frau Schwann first. And who knew whether the lady’s maid would even approve of the plan she and Greta had concocted for its recovery?

  * * *

  “You are fortunate to be alive, Herr Haydn.” Herr Moserle, the undertaker, clucked to himself as he dressed the wound on Haydn’s head.

  Haydn grimaced under the former barber-surgeon’s ministrations. The cooling salve Herr Moserle had applied had done much to dull the initial sharp dagger-thrusts of pain. The pale pink parlor walls and the fine Rococo furniture had ceased to swim around him in a dizzying circle, but his head still throbbed. He attempted to make light of the matter, however. “It was just the one blow. It cannot be that bad, can it?”

  He looked toward his brother, but the ashen color in Johann’s face and the wide, staring eyes with which he gaped at the wound suggested that his brother had feared the worst.

  “Your wig must have protected you from the worst of it. But the gash in your head is, nevertheless, quite deep—”

  “There is no need to describe it, Johann.” Haydn attempted a smile. But the image his brother’s words had called up was causing such havoc in his stomach, he was in danger of losing the small meal he had eaten at the palace. He forced himself to swallow, grimacing at the sour aftertaste of soup and boiled beef .

  Herr Moserle was still clucking to himself. “What can the world be coming to when thieves brazenly attack good men in the middle of the day? Your attacker either did not wish to do more than injure you or misjudged the force of his blow. A little harder, a little deeper…”

  “That is quite enough!” Kaspar’s aunt entered the parlor with a steaming bowl in her hands. “Can you not see the effect your gruesome imaginings have on these poor men? They have suffered enough. There is no need to agitate them any further.”

  She set the bowl before Haydn and patted his arm. “Take no notice of the man, Herr Haydn. He is more used to ministering to the dead than to the living and takes no thought of our sensibilities.” She patted his arm again. “This is a potion of my own brewing. It will help the wound heal.”

  The slender, gray-haired widow turned toward Johann. “And a small glass of wine for you, perhaps, Master Johann. It will ease the shock.” She hurried out of the parlor without waiting for a response.

  “It was not to alarm you that I spoke,” Herr Moserle said quietly when Kaspar’s aunt had left the room. “In truth, it was a blow such as the one you suffered today that caused poor Wilhelm Kaspar’s death. There were several such lacerations on his head. Quite unusual.”

  “How so?” Haydn swallowed a spoonful of the potion from the steaming bowl and nearly gagged. He had never tasted anything quite so wretched.

  “Hold still!” The undertaker pursed his lips as he put a few more stitches in the Kapellmeister’s head. “It was the same type of blow. Made by the same kind of weapon. A truncheon, I would wager.”

  “The same weapon,” Haydn repeated. He forced himself to swallow another spoonful of the wretched concoction. Could the attack on him have been deliberate? And if it was the same weapon that had struck him, could it have been the same person?

  His mind turned unbidden to Kaspar’s widow and the stranger he had seen with her. The sour expression on Amelie’s pinched features when he had taken the scores had grieved him more than he cared to admit at the time. Now he found himself angered by it. He had made Kaspar a promise, and nothing would prevent him from abiding by it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Wilhelm Dietrich was fond of his riddles,” the old merchant’s widow declared some hours later. She withdrew a worm-eaten casket from a hidden recess behind the bookcase.

  But for its chipped ivory inlay and the small holes that pockmarked the dark walnut surface, it looked very like the chest Haydn had lost in the fray outside the widow’s home. “And he seemed to get fonder of them as he grew older.”

  She turned toward the Kapellmeister and his brother. “It is old and worn”—she held out the chest—“but it should suffice.”

  Haydn was about to attempt a nod but thought better of it. The throbbing in his head had yet to subside despite Herr Moserle’s ministrations. He was loath to make it any worse than it already was.

  The undertaker had long left, but Kaspar’s aunt had insisted he and Johann rest awhile. Haydn had gladly acquiesced. The very thought of rising still made his head swim. He made a feeble attempt at it all the same to accept the casket but was stayed by his younger brother’s restraining hand.

  Johann rose from his seat and took the chest, old but still sturdy, from the widow’s slender hands. “It will do very nicely, Frau Dorfmeister.” He set it on the long low table before him and opened the lid.

  “There are some papers here, and a leather book,” he announced as he peered within.

  “Nothing important, I assure you.” The widow pushed up the false volume in the bookcase that gave access to the secret recess. The volume rose to a vertical position and slid smoothly along its hinges, clicking into place between two other volumes on either side of it. The portion of the bookcase which until now had stood open swung shut.

  “The book and the papers are in excellent condition for being housed in such a receptacle.” Mingled notes of surprise and awe tinged Johann’s
voice. “They appear quite old.” He carefully set them on the table. “Who knows, but they may be of some value.”

  The thought of a book—an old one at that—had piqued Haydn’s interest. He picked up the volume, rubbing his finger over the soft burgundy cover, scuffed and marked, but strong and exceedingly fine, nevertheless. Opening the book, he glanced down at the title page.

  “It is the Merchant of Venice,” he said softly. “William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.”

  “You may keep it.” Kaspar’s aunt, the widow Dorfmeister, sounded amused. “I see you share my poor husband’s love of all things old and useless.”

  But Haydn barely heard her. His skin was tingling. Ever since his English friend Charles Burney had introduced him to the works of the great sixteenth-century bard, Haydn had sought every opportunity to add to his growing collection. But the plays were not easily available in Austria. Herr Burney had sent him all the tragedies, but Haydn had a greater interest in the comedies.

  He flipped through the pages, recalling the very little Herr Burney had told him about this particular comedy. “A libretto based on a plot as ingenious as this would make for a most entertaining opera,” he murmured.

  “I suppose it would.” The widow’s eyes twinkled. The creases in her old face deepened as her lips stretched into a wide smile. She tipped her chin at the book. “It was a tale Wilhelm Dietrich so greatly loved, Herr Haydn, that he couldn’t resist making it part of his riddle.”

  The remark caught Haydn’s attention. “What riddle?” he wanted to know. Johann had been engaged in placing Kaspar’s scores in the chest, but even he ceased his task.

  Kaspar’s aunt uttered a low laugh. “I see you find little mysteries of this sort as entertaining as my husband.” She indicated the bookcase behind her. “The lever you saw me use a little while ago is made to look like a copy of the play you hold in your hands. Why, Dietrich couldn’t resist making reference to it in his will.”

  She went toward a small rosewood secretary at the corner of the room and withdrew a document from within it. “He insisted on keeping a sealed copy of it in the house. I opened it after Herr Anwalt had read the one Dietrich entrusted to him.” She turned over a few pages. “Here—” she handed one of the sheets to Haydn. “Read it for yourself.”

  “Behind the Shakespeare lies a great treasure,” Haydn read.

  “The hiding place Kaspar mentioned to us in his letter.” Johann looked over his shoulder. “A clever reference to the lever.” He turned back to the widow. “But I suppose you knew which volume it was.”

  “Not at the time,” she replied. “But it was an easy enough riddle to solve. My husband kept all his volumes of Shakespeare on a single shelf. But the Merchant of Venice was the play he most loved, and there was only one copy of it. I tugged on the book and…” She spread her hands out, lifting her shoulders in a slight shrug.

  Haydn smiled as he continued to pore over the will. “He seems not to have been able to resist a second reference to it. Here in his advice to Kaspar: But remember, my son, it is what lies within that gives the vessel value.”

  “Yes, the story of the three caskets in the play. It was the part that appealed most to Dietrich.”

  Haydn’s smile widened. “At least he did not make Kaspar choose one of several caskets.”

  Kaspar’s aunt smiled back. “There would have been no point. The least intelligent person could see which casket was meant. The one Master Johann has now was covered in dust and cobwebs. I had it cleaned soon after we discovered it. I should have thrown it away, but it was from Dietrich’s travels in Italy…”

  Her voice caught, and she blinked rapidly several times.

  Her faded blue eyes were still glistening when she spoke again. “The one that was stolen from you today, Herr Haydn, was a replica of it.” She cleared her throat. “He had it made some years back. It must have been when he saw how old and worm-eaten this one had become.”

  “And to save the music he meant to bequeath to Kaspar, no doubt,” Johann said gently. He turned toward his older brother.

  But Haydn’s attention had wandered again. He had put the play down and was now sifting through the papers from the old chest.

  What he saw made his skin prickle. There was no doubt now that Kaspar’s uncle had been in possession of the great master’s operas. But where were they?

  * * *

  “You look as though you had seen a ghost, brother.” Johann’s voice aroused Haydn from his thoughts.

  He slowly raised his head from the documents he had been absorbed in. The widow Dorfmeister had left the room.

  “These are scenari, Johann.” He had begun in a hushed pianissimo, but his voice started to crescendo. “These old papers left to languish in Wilhelm Dietrich’s worm-eaten casket are scenari.”

  He stopped abruptly. What had he said to make his younger brother stare at him like that? Johann’s gaze drifted upward, lingering on his bandaged head, before he finally glanced down at the papers in the Kapellmeister’s hands.

  “You are still thinking of the opera season at Eszterháza, I suppose.” Johann tipped his chin at the documents. “Marco Coltellini will have no trouble creating librettos from the scenari if the synopses they contain are sufficiently detailed. And if he is preoccupied with matters at court, Carlo Goldoni—”

  “No, no.” The steady avalanche of the enormous cushion behind Haydn—forcing him yet again toward the edge of the rosewood chaise—lent his voice a sharper edge.

  He braced his feet firmly on the ground, determined to prevail against the wretched thing. The widow had insisted he prop himself against it, but its cover of Tyrian purple satin was so treacherously slippery, he was continually sliding forward.

  Tired of battling with the thing, he thrust it to one side. “You do not understand,” he continued once he was comfortably settled within the chaise. “These are no ordinary scenari. They are synopses of the great master’s operas. The very—”

  He frowned, holding up a hand. Was that the front door opening? His ear caught the muffled sound of an unfamiliar voice. Kaspar’s aunt must have guests. “Quick! Put these away and let us be on our way.”

  He thrust the papers into the bottom of the chest. “Kaspar and his aunt are so surrounded by vultures, there is no telling whom we can trust.”

  He rose, determined to take his leave, but the widow Dorfmeister clearly had other plans.

  “Such good fortune, Herr Haydn.” She marched into the parlor with a young man at her heels. “I was hoping you would be able to make Fabrizzio’s acquaintance, and here he is. He is a music scholar. Trained in Italy, no less. The son of an old business acquaintance of Dietrich.”

  She laid an affectionate hand on the young man’s ruffled sleeve. “Perchance we may prevail upon him to render an opinion on our Kaspar’s music.”

  The scholar, far too young to receive such an appellation, bowed his head. “It would be an honor.” A smile played upon his lips. “I offered my services to Wilhelm Kaspar on more than one occasion, but…” His shoulders lifted in a brief shrug.

  “Kaspar did speak of you.” Haydn’s eyes flickered briefly toward Johann as he spoke. His eyes roved with some curiosity on the other’s person. What had Kaspar seen in the man to distrust him so?

  There was nothing out of the ordinary in his brown hair, although his waistcoat of blue satin and his white silk shirt with its ruffles might seem ostentatious to some. But the lips—smirking, a little too red, thrust out sensuously—

  A man smugly secure, Haydn thought, in the expectation that women will fawn over him. What man of sense could bring himself to like such a man, much less trust him? Even so …

  The Kapellmeister was about to dismiss Kaspar’s suspicions when he noticed the other’s dark eyes darting every so often toward the walnut chest.

  “That is it—yes?” Fabrizzio moved a little closer toward it. “The bequest we have heard so much about?”

  Before Haydn could stop him, the y
oung man had opened the casket and taken out the loosely bound manuscripts that lay on top.

  “Madrigals?” The sheaf of papers in Fabrizzio’s hands visibly quivered. He had perused them for no longer than a moment. His fingers dug into the sheets as he wrenched the next few pages aside. “These are but madrigals. In five voices.” His voice, already low, thickened—vocal cords caught in the intensity of some emotion.

  Haydn had barely time to register what it was when Fabrizzio’s tense features relaxed, and the corners of his mouth twitched. “I see my help may not be needed after all.” He laid the documents back in the casket. “Poor Kaspar!”

  There was no mistaking the mocking tone, although no one else appeared to have noticed it. Haydn himself might have thought he had imagined it but for the smirk that played about the man’s mouth.

  “You have heard the news, then?” Kaspar’s aunt cried. “How the poor man was set upon by ruffians?”

  “I uh—” The news appeared to have struck the young scholar immobile. Only his dark eyes darted, now here, now there. “He fares well, I trust?”

  Fabrizzio looked at no one in particular as he asked the question.

  “Unfortunately not,” Johann said. “The attack killed him.”

  “Killed?” The color drained from Fabrizzio’s cheeks. “That ca— How? To what end?”

  “For his bequest, it would appear,” Johann continued.

  Fabrizzio’s eyes drifted toward the chest. “For that?” His voice had risen. “Those scores…?”

  “There can be no question of it,” Haydn responded to the unspoken question. “His keys were stolen. His home broken into—”

  “Broken into?” Fabrizzio’s head came up. “What was taken?”

  “Nothing, fortunately. Although it is quite clear what the thieves were after.” Haydn indicated the chest.

  “Herr Haydn and his brother were attacked as well, Fabrizzio. The rascals made off with the chest, but fortunately the music was saved. If it were not for Albrecht—”