The Musician's Daughter

by Susanne Dunlap

  I remember finding it almost comical that they would creep in slowly, as though certain an army of cutthroats lurked in the hidden corners of the room. But their posture became more relaxed and they stood more upright as the torch illuminated empty space around them and caught the gleam of the first young prisoners’ eyes, still staring in silent fearfulness, hands and feet still bound and mouths still gagged. I noticed all this as the pool of light shed by the torch crept closer to where Toby and I stood. Danior, where have you gone! I thought, willing the Gypsy men to leap out and surprise the guards.

  I tried to shrink back, but the wall was in my way. I pulled Toby against my body, and felt the hard lump of the pistol in my belt. I had almost forgotten I had it. Without a moment’s hesitation I slipped my hand down to where I could grasp the hilt of the gun and eased it out. “Stay still, Toby,” I breathed into his ear, trying to quiet his trembling. I gripped him around his middle with my left arm, and aimed the pistol out from behind him with my right. By the time the light revealed us, I thought I would be prepared to pull the trigger.

  The illumination of the torch felt warm and harsh. I blinked against it. The guard who saw us first registered surprise, then smiled slowly. “So these are the ten men who attacked you, Hugo!”

  The others laughed, lowering their muskets to rest their stocks on the ground.

  “I’ll kill you if you come closer!” I yelled. I wanted my voice to carry to the floor above, but the music had started again. It was a lively symphony, and the tympani rolled. The noise would obscure just about any sounds from down here, as had been part of the plan.

  “You won’t be able to fire that thing when it’s not cocked, lad,” the main guard said, provoking more laughter from the others. His smile faded. “Tie them up,” he barked.

  At that very moment, I caught a gleam of Danior’s eyes from the dark corner behind the intruders and saw the faint flash of his dagger. Thank God, I thought. He looked prepared to leap forward and surprise them from behind, but just as he tensed for action, a voice from the doorway stopped him.

  “Is there some difficulty, gentlemen?”

  It was my uncle. Hildegard must have found him and told him, and no doubt he could guess the rest. He came into view, his eyes taking everything in, and I saw that my disguise did not fool him for more than a moment.

  “My dear Theresa, really. I thought the gown I purchased for you at great expense was much more flattering.”

  I might have found the guards’ perplexed expressions funny if I had not feared for my life—and my brother’s.

  “Quite enterprising of you, my dear,” Uncle Theobald said.

  I wanted to spit in his face.

  “Your father would have been proud of you, no doubt. He was just a bit too smart for his own good, and it seems he’s passed that dubious quality on to you.” He turned to the commander of the guards. “Secure her!” Then he addressed me again. “Your poor mother will be informed that, like so many children in this wicked city, you and your brother were abducted by Gypsies and sold into slavery in Turkey. She will weep, but with another on the way, I daresay she’ll get over it.”

  I don’t really know how I found the strength or even knew what to do, but I released my brother from my arm, gripped the pistol with two hands, pulled back the firing pin, and squeezed the trigger.

  The flash nearly blinded me, and the force of the shot threw me back into the wall. I hit my head and collapsed.

  CHAPTER 23

  I came to my senses again in a familiar position, and with a familiar stink surrounding me. I was slung over someone’s shoulder, my head pounding so hard I wanted to shriek with pain. The powerful smell of the sewer made me retch.

  “Good, you are alive!” Danior’s voice held relief in it. “Hold on, we’re going to get out of here.”

  I could not tell where we were in the pitch blackness, but I heard Danior’s steps sloshing through muck, followed by other similar steps behind us. He shifted me around and soon began climbing an iron ladder. I felt myself slipping, so I wrapped my arms around his waist.

  “Good girl,” he said, and climbed faster. Soon we stopped just long enough for him to lift a wooden hatch above our heads. We squeezed through the opening, and he set my feet on the floor so that I could take my own weight. I stood up quickly. The blood that had gathered in my head when I was hanging upside down rushed out, and I felt in danger of fainting.

  “Slowly!” he said, and pressed my shoulders forward, releasing me gradually until I could remain both upright and conscious. After that we stood to the side while the other two Gypsies followed us. I was more than relieved to see that the second violinist had Toby slung over his shoulder. He laid him down gently on the floor. My brother’s eyes were open wide with fear.

  “It’s all right, Toby,” I said, crouching down beside him. “These men are our friends.”

  He whispered, “Gypsies!” through his cracked lips.

  “He needs water,” I said to Danior, then turned back to Toby. “They play for Kapellmeister Haydn. Papa knew them, and was helping them.”

  I wanted to tell him enough to ease his fear, but not to confuse him. “Where are we?” I asked, rubbing the back of my head as I turned to look at Danior and the others. I felt a bump there and a little blood matted my hair, which was uncovered and fell in unruly curls over my shoulders. The bag wig must have fallen off at some point. I wondered if the cushioning of its lamb’s-wool curls had protected me from a worse injury.

  “We are somewhere safe,” Danior replied.

  Only then did I notice that all three of the musicians had been wounded in some way. The worst was the one who had not been carrying either of us. He clutched a bleeding arm to his chest, and his face was pale. “I want to know what happened,” I said.

  “I’ll tell you once we take care of your brother and Brishen, who is badly hurt.”

  Danior continued to lead the way through a door and up a winding staircase. Our pace was slow, to accommodate Brishen’s weakness, and the fact that Durril—the other violinist’s name, I later discovered—had to carry Toby.

  We were obviously in a very grand building of some sort. We climbed and climbed and walked through corridor after dimly lit corridor until we emerged in an attic space. Although the ceilings sloped, and it was clear from the modest, narrow beds that servants or artisans lived there, it was spotlessly clean. The linens that covered the beds looked almost new. Durril placed Toby on one of them. Danior went to another door of the room and cracked it open, then whistled low and musically, making a sound like the call of a distant nightingale.

  To my surprise, a moment later Alida bustled through carrying bandages, followed by a chambermaid with a bucket of water and an armload of clean clothes, mostly in the colors of the imperial servants. We must be inside the Hofburg itself, I thought. The maid handed Danior the clothes before going to clean off Toby’s face and check him for injuries. I noticed that her skin was of a darker cast than was usual among the Viennese, and wondered if perhaps she was a Gypsy, too. All of us changed out of our filthy, blood-stained garments. I turned away, keeping my shirt on and hoping that no one stared at my scrawny girl’s legs before I could cover them with the ill-fitting breeches and hose the maid had brought. I tucked my hair down into the coat, since she had not brought any wigs, then stuffed a soft felt hat down on my head to cover as much of it as I could.

  Without saying a word, Alida began dressing Brishen’s wound, cleaning it out and wrapping it carefully. Brishen did not make even the smallest sound, although he must have been in terrible pain. I stole a look at his injury. He had a deep gash running from his shoulder to his elbow, a gash that looked to have been made by a sword.

  “Now, tell me,” I said to Danior, knowing there must have been a fierce fight after I fired the pistol and hit my head.

  Alida looked up. Her eyes locked with Danior’s, and in that instant I understood that they were in love. That was why Zoltán told me I could trust th
is Roma man who would have no reason I could think of to put himself in such peril for the sake of me and my brother.

  “Your bullet hit the councilor,” Danior said, turning away from Alida and looking at me.

  I gulped. Had I killed my own uncle? What ever it was he had done, now that we were safe at least for the moment, I did not want to have murdered him.

  “We left him alive,” he continued.

  I let my breath out, hardly realizing I had been holding it.

  “We surprised the guards, but they were well armed. It was quite a fight. In the end we tied them all together, the guards and your uncle. Good that you had told us about the door to the sewers before you knocked yourself out.”

  He did not say, but I assumed they had done some damage to the men who had been protecting my uncle. If they were indeed imperial guards, as their uniforms suggested, it would mean death to Danior, Brishen, and Durril if they were caught. As for myself—I had no doubt my uncle would exact the worst punishment possible. “Did they see you?” I asked.

  “We did our best to hide our faces. But I cannot be sure.”

  Alida, who had continued staring steadfastly at Danior while he spoke, turned her eyes away to concentrate on wrapping the bandages around Brishen’s arm. I saw the sparkle of tears on her lashes.

  “What happens now?” I could not imagine how we would be able to get away. Anywhere we went might send us into the path of palace guards. I wanted to ask as well whether Alida knew what had passed at the concert, whether Zoltán had spoken to her. Had the party continued as if life and death were not being held in the balance in the chamber below the music room? I feared for my godfather, who had clearly already placed himself in a difficult position for the sake of the persecuted Gypsies. Someone would not have to look far to unearth his dealings with the Roma. In fact, someone apparently already knew enough to blackmail him over his publishing contract.

  “Brishen and the boy can stay here. The rest of you will have to disperse.” Alida spoke calmly, as if this were an event she had prepared for well in advance.

  Danior nodded. “I’ll lead them out,” he said.

  So, he was enough in the habit of visiting Alida in her quarters at the palace to know all the secret passages and servants’ nooks. There was something thrilling about a forbidden love. I wondered how Alida felt, desiring someone she could not be with. I knew from everything Zoltán had told me that she would be cast out if she married a Gypsy. I wondered if it would also destroy Zoltán’s efforts to have their lands restored. And then, how would they live? I could not picture the elegant Alida as a humble musician’s wife like my mother, much less a Gypsy herself, camping in a wagon and wandering over the countryside.

  “Have you managed to get us an audience yet?” Danior asked her just before leading Durril and me out of the room.

  “I have approached the archduchess,” Alida said, tying off the bandage on Brishen’s arm and standing up to face us. Her eyes were full and sad. “She says she could arrange something, but there are conditions.”

  Danior nodded. He seemed to know what the conditions might be, and did not ask her to explain. I wanted to rush over to Alida and say, What conditions? Tell me! but it was not my place to do so. We left quickly.

  The secret exit let us out into an alley behind the palace. The sky was paling in the east. Soon it would be dawn. Danior and Durril looked left and then right, then each started to hurry away in opposite directions. “I don’t know where to go!” I called out in a loud whisper to Danior. He stopped and turned. “Find Zoltán!” he said, then ran off.

  Find Zoltán. Of course, I knew where he lived. But I was tired to my bones, and now that I knew Toby was safe and there was no immediate danger to myself, I wanted more than anything just to return to my own bed. I wanted the comforting sound of my mother’s voice. Greta’s commands. The curfew bell ringing as my eyes drooped over a book. I wanted to sit at Mama’s bedside and hear her prattle on about my marriage and suitors, about the matchmaker, and affording elegant gowns. Poor Mama. She still thought, I imagined as I dragged myself through the early morning city streets, that her brother was going to solve all our problems by giving me a handsome dowry. She no doubt also thought Toby and I were safely cradled in luxury, discovering how the wealthy lived, eating sweets and sleeping between soft sheets.

  My fatigue and the half light of approaching dawn made the deserted lanes appear unreal. It had remained cold, and yesterday’s snow still clung to rooftops and windowsills. A day’s carriage and foot traffic had turned the streets to mud, however, and now the frigid night had frozen them into deep ruts. I had to look down at my feet to make sure I didn’t trip. As a result, I walked on without thinking and didn’t realize how close I was to Zoltán’s apartment until I looked up and saw the two guards standing by the door of his building. They didn’t see me—or didn’t notice me, I was pretty sure. I turned and walked down the first alleyway I came to as though that had been my intention all along.

  The presence of the guards suggested that someone must have made a connection between Zoltán and what happened at my uncle’s the night before. But how? He had not been with us when we ventured into the cellar. Someone close to the Gypsies, or Haydn, or Zoltán, or my father—someone with ties or associations with all of them—must be a spy. I could think of no other way to explain it. That would be one more complication to add to everything else, but I could spare no time wondering who it might be at that particular moment. I assumed that the presence of the guards outside Zoltán’s home meant that he had not been apprehended as yet, and they were waiting for him to return. I hoped that also meant that he had left my uncle’s house unharmed and gone somewhere else. Not to the Hofburg, though, because Alida would have said.

  I was beginning to feel frozen through. My own apartment was not far away, but I didn’t dare go there. With Toby removed from the cellar, I had no doubt that our home was being watched, too, and my uncle had seen me and would have his spies searching for me. What had happened, I wondered, to the other boys who were tied up along with Toby and looked so frightened? I wished we could have taken them all away, but that would have been impossible. Why were they there? Who were they? How could we save them from what ever it was my uncle intended to do to them?

  I couldn’t wander the streets forever. I had to go somewhere. I could think of only one place that might be comparatively safe. Cold and tired as I was, I realized I must make the long walk to the house on the Marienhilferstrasse to see my godfather. It was light enough to be morning, so the sentries at the city gate would not challenge me. And my godfather was in a high enough position that to arrest or abduct him would cause an uproar and require more explanation than my uncle might be willing to supply, so I was fairly confident that he would still be at liberty. I would tell him about the boys, and also about my suspicions concerning Schnabl. The old man had turned up in too many places for me to ignore the probability that he was involved in some way. Yet I could not imagine why Schnabl—the oldest of the Esterhazy musicians—would steal music from Haydn and take it to my uncle. It just didn’t make sense.

  Unless... No. It couldn’t be. Schnabl was beyond the age where ambition or passion might push him to get involved in anything illegal. He would receive his musician’s pension soon and live out his days quite comfortably. Why would he risk that? No, Schnabl could not be the missing piece of the puzzle. Clearly I was exhausted and letting my imagination run away with me.

  By the time I reached Haydn’s apartment, I couldn’t feel my hands and feet, and my lips felt numb, too. I was so hungry my stomach hurt. I knew I would cry if anyone said the slightest unkind word to me. I knocked loudly on the door despite the hour, knowing that I would probably wake up the entire house hold, and not really caring.

  To my surprise, the door opened almost instantly, and I was faced not with the maid but with my godfather himself. He looked haggard and tired. He wore a dressing gown and no wig, revealing his own sparse, gray hair. Hi
s eyes filled with tears, and he pulled me into a warm embrace as soon as he saw me.

  “If I had known all of what they were about, I would never have permitted it,” he said, his arm still around my shoulders as he led me into the parlor.

  “Tell me what you do know,” I said. “What happened upstairs while we were in the cellar? Was it that horrid maid?”

  The maestro rang for a servant to bring me some breakfast before answering. “I only know that Zoltán had told me the order of compositions to play, and that I was to dismiss those who weren’t in the quartets and the divertimentos—including you, of course. He did not tell me the rest, saying only that you could lead them to where they needed to go to find Toby. I waited to hear the pistol shot and to cry out for the guards, but it never came.

  “When none of you returned for the symphony, I began to suspect there was a problem. But I continued, at that point deciding that I had better direct the tympani to be as loud as they possibly could.”

  “Did you notice my uncle? Did he do anything strange or act odd?” I asked.

  “Well, he was there for a while, but it was quite extraordinary. I think it has to do with old Schnabl. I was going to tell him—he has a bit of a weakness for drink, and he’s not really been in top form lately—I was going to tell Schnabl not to bother with this engagement, that I would make up the money to him later, but he insisted on coming. When not everyone returned for the symphony, I saw Schnabl get up from his desk at the back of the cellos and say something to the valet, that tall, skeletal fellow.

  “Then the valet walked around and said something to Wolkenstein, who after that bowed to the Hungarian ambassador and left the room. I did see the maid approach him on his way out, but he didn’t stop for her. That was the last I saw of him. When the concert ended, the valet returned to say that his master had had a bad turn and must beg his pardon to be excused from the company. No one seemed to mind, and the party went on. I expect they were a little relieved. They certainly seemed to be enjoying the food and drink. I stayed for only a short while after that. Zoltán left with the others immediately after the concert, as far as I knew then.