Masks and Shadows

by Stephanie Burgis

  “It will not fail.” Radamowsky straightened away from the bookcase and looked directly into the Prince’s eyes. “You need have no fear, Your Highness. You will amaze and astound your imperial guests, and the name of Esterházy will be written across history for a hundred years to come.”

  “Yes?” The Prince blinked, then threw back his shoulders with a short, hard laugh. “Yes. Of course. How could it not?”

  “Quite.” Radamowsky glanced pointedly at the pile of papers on his desk. “But if you will excuse me . . .”

  “Of course. Your preparations. Excellent. Good man.” The Prince clapped him on the shoulder. “Quite the challenge for you, I’m afraid, now that our little ruse has been undone—having to playact being a guest, and work as a scholar, both at once.”

  “Difficult, but not impossible.” Radamowsky paused, considering, then let his lips curve into a full smile as he met the red eyes of the elemental in the lamp . . . the discovery he would not be giving up to anyone else, after all. “Especially when the rewards will be so great.”

  Half past eight o’clock. Voices and footsteps moved in the corridor outside. Friedrich shaved in front of his mirror. He had thrown his valet out of the room. Out of the barracks. The razor moved up and down. He saw it from a distance, without interest.

  “Are you going to help me or not, von Höllner?”

  The lather from his soap had been used up. The razor scraped across bare and reddened skin.

  “What the devil is he talking about?”

  The razor moved in a stinging path. A spark of pain flickered against Friedrich’s cheek.

  “Friedrich, don’t let him—!”

  “I couldn’t help it!” Friedrich screamed.

  The voices in the corridor cut off. Friedrich stared into his mirror, panting. Blood trickled down his face from three different cuts.

  A tentative knock sounded on the door.

  “Von Höllner? Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Friedrich called. His voice cracked. “I’m fine.”

  He put on his uniform quickly, haphazardly, not bothering to straighten his jacket or comb out his hair. He waited until the corridor was silent, then hurried out of his room, out of the building, and across the grass. Toward his next task. The opera rehearsal.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” he whispered as he walked. His feet thudded against soft grass. “I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t—”

  “Von Höllner!” Lautzner intercepted him, just five feet from the opera house. “Have you seen Esterházy?”

  “Anton?” Friedrich’s mouth went dry.

  “He’s late for maneuvers. How late were you two out last night, anyway?”

  “Ah . . .” Friedrich shrugged. His heartbeat thrummed behind his chest. “I haven’t seen him.”

  “Well, I’m off to check his room, but Forgàcs said he never heard Esterházy come back in last night. Didn’t he say anything to you, then?”

  Bile rose up Friedrich’s throat and nearly choked him.

  “I haven’t seen him,” he repeated, and broke into a run.

  She was so earnest. And he needed so badly to talk and lift some of the madness. “Fräulein Dommayer,” Franz began softly, “last night I saw—”

  The door to the audience burst open. Lieutenant von Höllner stumbled across the floor and fell into his usual seat.

  “My God,” Franz whispered.

  The man looked like walking death. Yet he was still here—on assignment? It could only be that. He, of all men, was wholly under the Brotherhood’s thrall. He raised his head and looked straight up at Franz. His face twisted.

  “What were you starting to say, Herr Pichler?” Fräulein Dommayer asked.

  Franz wrenched his gaze away from the lieutenant’s tortured face. Fräulein Dommayer’s blue eyes were wide and worried.

  “I want to help you,” she whispered. “I’m sure, if you tell me what’s happening, we can think of something to do about it. The Baroness—my former employer—her sister is very close to the Prince. And the Baroness promised she would always help me. If she goes to the Prince and lays your problem before him—”

  “The Prince?” Madame Zelinowsky purred. She’d slipped up beside them, her gaze avid. “What on earth can the two of you be speaking of now?”

  “Nothing worth writing about,” Franz said crisply. He stepped back and forced a contemptuous glare. “You have an overactive imagination, Fräulein Dommayer.”

  “But—”

  “My voice will be perfectly recovered by tonight. And even if it weren’t, I certainly wouldn’t have any desire to consult the Prince about it.”

  “Did you really imagine that His Highness would be interested?” Madame Zelinowsky stared at Fräulein Dommayer and began to laugh. “Oh, Anna, my dear little Anna, what sort of education do you maidservants receive, nowadays?” She stepped back, opening up the joke to the other singers standing nearby. “You have so much still to learn.”

  Fräulein Dommayer flushed bright red. “Apparently I do.” She stared at Franz accusingly.

  Forgive me, Franz thought, as he turned away. His gaze passed over Lieutenant von Höllner, and he repressed a shudder.

  For a moment, he’d felt so tempted to share his terror with someone who seemed to care. But it would only have put her in danger, too.

  It’s for the best, he thought bleakly, as he walked away from her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “Something holds me here just as strongly as your love for your sister binds you,” he had told her. Charlotte had memorized his words. Easy enough, as they sounded anew in her ears at every moment. Uttered in his high, pure voice, they had resonated through her entire body. The look in his eyes, as he had said them . . .

  Had she understood him? Or had she been hopelessly naïve? Surely she couldn’t have been mistaken. The surge of joy that had suffused her at his words had felt so right. She had looked up at him with—with pleasure, yes, with admiration, with—

  With adoration, she thought. Helpless adoration. And he had looked back at her, and she had felt—

  “Lotte, are you even listening to me?”

  Charlotte blinked, and snapped back into the present. She was sitting on her younger sister’s bed, and Sophie was holding up two different gowns for her inspection.

  “I like the blue,” Charlotte said. It doesn’t matter what I like. She drew a deep, restraining breath, fighting to calm her racing heartbeat. Trying to stop counting the hours, and the minutes, until she would see Signor Morelli again. She was as pathetic as a girl of fifteen—and as hopeless. As a responsible, adult woman, she should not even wish him to admire her. To desire her. The thought that he might find even half the appeal in her that she found in him—it should be a pity. A shame, to be quietly and kindly discouraged. It shouldn’t bring this host of fantasies into her head. Impossible fantasies. Improbable, immoral . . .

  She had never felt anything like this. It was completely inappropriate. Utterly mad.

  But she couldn’t seem to make herself stop.

  She glanced at the clock that stood in the corner. Only two more hours until dinner.

  “Well, let’s hope that Niko likes this one.” Sophie turned to the mirror and held the blue gown up before her, frowning speculatively. “He’s going to see me in it tonight.”

  “When?” Charlotte asked—then bit her tongue. It was one thing to fantasize madly about herself. It was another thing to have to consider her little sister’s fantasies. “I mean—you don’t have to answer that.”

  “Why not?” Sophie spun around, grinning. “I’m sneaking into the opera tonight!”

  “What? How?” Charlotte stared at her. “Why?”

  “‘How’ is easy enough. I am one of the Princess’s ladies-in-waiting, remember?”

  “Yes, but . . .” Charlotte’s heart sank. “Sophie, think how awkward it would be for you. To sit in the same box as the Princess, to see—”

  “Why shouldn’t I?”
/>   “You said the Prince . . . Oh, never mind.”

  Charlotte looked down at her fingers, spread across the ruffled cover of Sophie’s bed. Bought by the Prince. She winced. When she looked back up, Sophie had lost her mischievous grin.

  “I know,” Sophie said, “Niko doesn’t want to sit between me and Her High-and-Frozenness in public. That’s all right. He explained it to me. He doesn’t want me to have to pretend to be anything less than what I really am.”

  Then why has he kept you in hiding? Charlotte thought. But she did not ask the question. There were too many layers of pain and complication in this palace. She had no right to probe at the open sores.

  Instead, she stood up and laid a hand on her younger sister’s shoulder.

  “I’ll stay in with you tonight,” she said. “I’ll plead a headache.”

  “And miss Herr Haydn’s new opera? Lotte, you’ve been talking of it for the past week.”

  “It wouldn’t be the greatest loss I could imagine,” Charlotte said lightly.

  The greatest loss would be the hours missed. How many hours did she have left before Signor Morelli left Eszterháza for another grand tour, another noble visit or operatic engagement? How many chances did she have left to listen to music at his side, absorbed in the beauty and sharing it with him? How many chances to look up and find his dark eyes fixed on her—perhaps, accidentally, to brush hands, or . . .

  Charlotte let out her held breath. “Don’t concern yourself, Sophie. I won’t mind it at all.”

  “You won’t have to. I wouldn’t miss tonight’s performance for the world!” Sophie turned her head and rested her pointed chin on Charlotte’s hand. “I’ll have to miss all the rest of the visit, but I can’t miss this. Niko’s been planning it for ages. Months! It’s not just the opera. There’s some secret—it’s a great mystery, very exciting—”

  “A secret?” Charlotte felt a twinge of shadow—the Princess’s warning whispering through her. “What sort of secret?”

  “That’s just it! He won’t tell me, no matter how much I tease him. All he’ll say is that it’s a great surprise for his guests. Of course, he thought he would only have one guest, the Archduke, but now that they’re all here . . .” Sophie sighed. “He says it’s going to make his name in history. How can I not be there to share it with him?”

  “It must be a great event indeed,” Charlotte said slowly. “Sophie—”

  “Don’t even try to talk me out of this, Lotte! I’m determined to see it myself.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry, silly. I won’t sit in the royal box. I’m not entirely lacking in sense, you know! I’m going to sit with the officers, instead.”

  Charlotte frowned. “How?”

  “With my husband, of course. Remember him?” Sophie stepped away and clapped for her maid. “Friedrich has done nothing but gamble and drink and ogle actresses from the first day we arrived at Eszterháza. It’s about time he finally does something worthwhile.”

  “So you’ll go to the opera with him as your escort,” Charlotte said. “Has he really agreed to this?”

  Sophie shrugged. “I’ve sent him a note, telling him he had to do it. I told him it was Niko’s express desire.” Her cheeks flushed; she wouldn’t meet Charlotte’s eyes. “Well, it should be his desire, even if it isn’t.”

  “And the Prince—have you told him?”

  Sophie turned to look at her, her eyes bright. “I think it will do Niko a great deal of good to catch sight of me unawares,” she said. “Watch him for me, Lotte. Tell me exactly how he reacts.”

  Sophie’s maid hurried in from the outer chamber, carrying combs and pins. Charlotte phrased her next words carefully, watching her sister’s glittering excitement.

  “Sophie—dearest—I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Of course it’s a good idea! I’ve been plotting it ever since last night, while you were probably off flirting with that freak.”

  “Sophie!” Charlotte’s cheeks burned.

  “Ha. I knew it. And after you promised me not to.” Sophie shook her head.

  “It’s not—it’s only—”

  “Don’t tell me, Lotte. I promise you, I don’t want to hear, or to know anything about it. Just as long as you don’t do anything stupid in public to embarrass me . . .” Sophie took a breath and turned around to let her maid reach the buttons behind her neck. “Remember, Lotte, for once in our lives you truly have no moral superiority over me.”

  Charlotte sighed and stepped back. “I never thought I did,” she said softly.

  Sophie’s high, chattering voice followed her out of the room, issuing instructions to the maid. Charlotte closed the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, taking a deep breath.

  She wasn’t looking forward to the evening, after all.

  Carlo paced up and down the corridor outside his room. One more hour left before dinner. This was his first free moment in a day full of rigorously scheduled entertainments for the imperial guests, but he was too irritated and weary to settle into anything useful.

  The worst had come in the midafternoon. Alternately bored and horrified, he’d had to sit with the rest of the court through an hour-long display of folk dancing by ferociously smiling local peasants so thin they’d looked to topple in the next strong wind. Two had been called up at the end for an interrogation on their health and happiness; at the conclusion of their set speeches of gratitude and contentment, Prince Nikolaus had smiled with rich satisfaction and tossed the leader a jingling velvet sack. The gesture might have meant more, Carlo thought, if the money hadn’t been worked off their frail backs in the first place.

  Still, it had spurred his first truly kind thoughts about the Empress and Emperor when he had seen their exchange of speaking looks. Empress Maria Theresia had been struggling against her magnates for nearly forty years to abolish the miserable state of serfdom in the Hungarian lands. From all appearances, her co-regent shared in her disgust—and the tactless, single-minded Emperor, by all accounts, was far less willing to accept political compromises than his mother. Prince Nikolaus and his fellows would have a hard battle to fight against imperial reforms in these coming years. The Empress might still be the most powerful figure in the land, but she was also an aging woman; it would not be long before her son inherited sole control and the whole empire shook beneath his plans.

  For now, though, Carlo shook his head impatiently and swung around at the end of the corridor. He had one hour of freedom. He would not waste any more of it in thoughts of tiresome aristocrats. He should exercise his voice; catch up on his vast correspondence; even take a nap. He should pin down his next destination after Eszterháza. He should stop pining after the one particular aristocrat who never tired him—the one he could surely never have.

  He glanced at his pocket watch and sighed. Fifty-eight minutes left to wait.

  Princess Marie Elisabeth Esterházy frowned at her two companions, as the pale light of early evening spilled through the windows into her spacious sitting room.

  “No details at all?” she asked. “You have no idea what will happen tonight?”

  Monsieur Jean shrugged. “Your Highness, we’ve told you all we know. Something—the culmination of all this frantic plotting—will take place during the celebrations at the opera house.”

  “But you still don’t know any of the details?”

  “Signor Morelli is not involved,” Jean said easily. “I’m certain enough of that. And as for the Baroness . . .” He glanced at Asa.

  “There were no letters hidden in her room,” Asa said, without looking up from her embroidery. She snapped one end of her thread off with her teeth, and sighed. “Nothing with that seal. Nothing suspicious.”

  “And she would never put her sister in danger.” The Princess tapped her bejeweled fingers on her knee. “What a pity. I really thought they might have been the ones. It would have made so much sense! Perhaps our Herr von Born is not so subtle as I’d thought.”r />
  Jean coughed. “Shall I go to the Prince now, Your Highness? Summon him to you, to hear all that we’ve learned?”

  “No.” The Princess’s face tightened. “I don’t think that would do the slightest bit of good. In fact, it would be entirely counterproductive.”

  “But—”

  “If we had tangible evidence to present, I might tell him. Possibly.” She pressed her lips together. Her gaze turned inward a moment . . . and then she sighed. “No. Herr von Born may be masquerading around the palace grounds and plotting his political heart out, but the opera house tonight will be full of officers and surrounded by Her Majesty’s own Hungarian Bodyguard. There will be a guard even at the royal box. There is no more protection that we could possibly put into place.” She snorted. “And at any rate, Nikolaus would never call off such a grand performance merely on the suspicions of his wife and her servants. He wouldn’t even think twice about it.” She drew a sudden breath. “And yet, perhaps . . .”

  “Your Highness?”

  “Yes,” the Princess breathed. “I shall write a note, now, begging him to call off the performance on my bidding, to assuage my sensible fears. I’ll tell him I’m certain of disaster for our imperial guests, if the performance does take place . . . and I’ll keep a copy for myself. It will be a note that will shame him afterward when he recalls it, if anything does go wrong. Then he shall be forced to account to the Empress for his decision to ignore my warning and thus put her in danger . . . as he most certainly will ignore my warning. Oh, how perfect!”

  “Your Highness,” Asa murmured, as she began a new thread, “perhaps, still, it would be better for you not to attend the opera tonight yourself, for your own safety. If you say you have been taken ill, or—”

  “No.” The Princess’s eyes hardened. “I am Nikolaus’s consort, whether that stupid little girl realizes it or not. This is my place, and the risk that I must take. And if it succeeds, and I can look him in the face afterward, before the Emperor and Empress, to confront him with how little account he has taken of me . . .” She drew a deep breath. “If it succeeds, then perhaps I may finally be free of this palace after all. Forever.”