Vienna was a Muse’s dream city, as vibrant and alive as Paris. Perhaps, for this moment in time, even more so.
Another aspect of life for which Vienna had no significant rival at all was its balls. There were well over a hundred significant balls during the course of the carnival season. Every guild and group had its ball: the Vienna Skating Club, the Industrialists, the Hotelkeepers, the Danube Steamship Company, the Physicians, the Master Bakers, the Cobblers, the Laundrymaids, and the various artists’ associations with their “Gschnas” balls—the “false magic” balls which were always fantastical and strange.
It was already late in the ball season, which began with the New Year’s Eve Imperial Ball, the first major ball of the year. In early March, the last of the balls in which the haute bourgeoisie might reasonably expect the appearance of some of the aristocracy was the Opera Redoute Ball, where the ladies were expected to come masked and mysterious, at least until the grand unmasking at midnight—after which the ball would continue to rollick on until a new dawn painted the eastern sky over the Ringstrasse. Gustav was making a rare appearance at the ball—despite his publicly stated distaste for them—and he’d asked Gabriele to attend as his guest.
“And why have you decided to grace the Opera Redoute with your presence?” Gabriele asked Gustav as she stepped into the carriage he’d hired.
“There’s a man attending that I wish to meet,” Gustav replied. Sitting across from her, he looked rather elegant in his coat and tails, a brushed and shiny top hat on the seat alongside him. Gabriele raised her eyebrows at that. Under her fur-trimmed long coat, she was wearing the dress that the Flöges had made for her. She held her mask on her lap for the moment: a black domino adorned with peacock feathers and a green satin ribbon. “He said he can supply me gold foil for my paintings at half the price of my current supplier.”
“Half the price? That’s impossible, Gustav—at least legally.”
“Indeed. But he says he can do it, nonetheless, and entirely within the bounds of the law. He had a certificate from the Ministry of Commerce, and a letter from Archduchess Gisela herself recommending him.” Gustav shrugged. “Why not talk to the man?”
Of late, Gustav had taken to decorating his canvases with pieces of gold foil, incorporating them into the painted work and lending the compositions a shimmering allure. He was also beginning to abandon the strict realism of his earlier work, lengthening and distorting his figures. Gabriele wasn’t certain yet that she entirely approved of the changes he was making, but she could feel the passion and fury in the energy of his soul-heart. Whatever he was doing, it was at least partially due to her influence and the artistic expression within him that she had unleashed. So she smiled and reached over to pat Gustav’s knee.
“Why not?” she answered. “Will the Flöge sisters be there as well? It was Emilie and Pauline who made this dress; I should like them to see me in it.”
He didn’t look directly at her, but stared out into the night through the carriage’s door. “I believe they will be,” he said.
“Fräulein Emilie is delightful and enchanting, I think. You captured her well in her portrait.”
Gustav grunted in reply, still seemingly fascinated with the scenes along the Ringstrasse. You should have asked her to accompany you, not me, Gabriele thought, but kept the admonition to herself.
They arrived at the Redoute in a line of carriages and fiacres disgorging the bejeweled and dazzling well-to-do of Vienna. Gustav tied the mask’s ribbon carefully around Gabriele’s upswept coiffure, and they descended from their carriage to join the crowd. Few people arrived on foot—that was simply not done, no matter how close one lived. The opera house was brilliant with electric lights, and a new parquet floor had been erected over the opera seats, while on the stage none less than Eduard “Edi” Strauss, son of Johann Strauss the Elder and younger brother of Johann Strauss, Jr., led his waltz orchestra. Gabriele took Gustav’s arm as they entered the crowd and gave their tickets to the white-tailed doormen, who pointed them toward the entrance to their room.
Gustav was stopped several times by men wishing to speak with him; she noticed he deliberately never introduced her to anyone. She could see them peering at her and her masked features, wondering who the well-known Klimt might be escorting: some well-known person, perhaps: she heard one man whisper to his companion that she must certainly be Adele Bloch-Bauer, the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, the wealthy industrialist.
The masked women smiled openly at Gustav, and to Gabriele as well; afraid, perhaps, that they might be slighting someone whom they wouldn’t wish to anger. Until the grand unmasking, this was a night of anonymous flirtations, both in play and in earnest. Here, her identity hidden by her mask, a woman could dare to touch a man’s face with her gloved hand, or place that hand on his arm—several women did so with Gustav. He was besieged, and—making excuses—made his way quickly to their table in a room just off the main dance floor. Franz Matsch was already seated at the table, escorting Theresa Anna Kattus, daughter of a wine merchant—several bottles of her father’s sparkling wine were already chilling in ice buckets on the table. Gustav’s brother Ernst was standing to one side, watching the dancers with his wife Helene. With him also were the other Flöge sisters, Pauline and Emilie, both unescorted and both masked. As Gabriele and Gustav entered the curtained-off room, with its far end open to the dance floor, Gabriele could see Emilie’s mouth frown slightly under her blue domino, adorned with red glass spangles.
The orchestra was just starting a quadrille; out on the floor, groups of couples bowed to each other as they began the dance. Gabriele disengaged her arm from Gustav’s as he greeted Franz and Theresa, and Gabriele went to stand next to Emilie as the bright strains of the quadrille shimmered in the air of the hall. “You look lovely tonight, Fräulein Tietze,” the young woman said. Her eyes glittered behind the mask, but the mask hid whatever expression they held.
“Call me Gabriele,” she reminded Emilie. “And if that’s true, it’s mostly due to your wonderful dress.” She swayed her hips in time to the music so that the dress swirled out, displaying the embroidery. “Gustav keeps remarking on how talented you and your sisters are.” Under the mask, Emilie smiled momentarily at that, and Gabriele leaned toward her, whispering so that only she could hear. “I think you should ask him to dance with you. He won’t be able to refuse.”
“You wouldn’t mind?” Her voice was light with hope.
Gabriele laughed. “I’m only here because he didn’t dare ask you. On the way here, he asked me three separate times if I thought you’d be here. Can’t you see him staring at you now, even while he’s talking to Herr Matsch?”
Emilie glanced back into the room, and Gabriele saw her smile widen slightly as she quickly glanced away. “His look makes me shiver,” she said.
“It’s him that’s shivering,” Gabriele said. “Tonight he’s in your world. You’re his empress. You control him, not the other way, and don’t let anything in the world tell you differently. Listen—the quadrille’s nearly over and they’ll be calling a new dance in a moment. Go and ask him to take you out to the floor.”
Emilie stared at her for a moment through the mask, then nodded once. Gabriele watched her walk up to Gustav, who bowed as she approached and took her hand. They spoke for a few moments, then Gustav looked up and found Gabriele’s eyes. She smiled at him and gestured with her open fan to the dance floor. Still holding Emilie’s hand, Gustav moved past his brother, Helene, Pauline, and Gabriele and out into the ballroom. Gabriele watched them go (and felt Pauline and Helene’s gazes on her also), taking a place with several other couples as another quadrille began. They bowed and entered the formal turns and steps of the dance.
Gabriele watched, and applauded when the dance ended. Gustav and Emilie remained on the floor, their heads inclined toward each other. Gabriele could feel the long, bright tendrils of Gustav’s soul-heart bending toward Emilie, her own grasp on them now stretched and thin. It was diffic
ult to keep down the flash of jealousy she felt, watching them, but she forced it away. I’m only using him; I don’t want him that way. She’s his true muse, not me …
As Emilie and Gustav conversed, Gabriele saw a man approach the two. She couldn’t see his face, but something about him, about the way he walked and the way he held himself … She knew, knew without seeing that face. Her breath left her, making her feel light-headed. Her stomach churned, and she could taste bile in the back of her throat. Then the man turned to profile, and she knew for certain.
Nicolas.
Despite the fact that this was what she’d wanted, she wasn’t ready. Not tonight. She had nothing with her to protect herself, and she didn’t wish to talk with him or let him know she was here. Not yet; not until she could do so on her own terms and in a place where she felt safe. He couldn’t know she was here; not yet. He would suspect it, might even be relatively certain, but he couldn’t know, not until he’d seen her with Gustav. They were still talking, and she saw Gustav introduce him to Emilie; she thought she saw disappointment cross Nicolas’ face. Gustav waved a hand; he gestured in the direction of their open room, and Nicolas looked that way.
Gabriele took a step farther back in the room, happy for the mask that hid her features and shielding herself behind Ernst and Helene. “I’m afraid I’m not feeling well,” she said to them. “Tell Gustav that I’m taking a fiacre back to my rooms. I’ll talk to him sometime tomorrow.”
They murmured polite noises, though she knew that they were both thinking that this sudden illness had something to do with Emilie. She hurried from the room, took her coat from the checkroom, and hurried into the lobby, telling one of the doormen to summon transportation for her.
He’s here. You’ve found him. You’ve sighted your quarry; now you can plan the kill.
The realization made her simultaneously thrilled and frightened.
*
Verdette purred on her lap as she worked, dressed in her nightgown.
Even when she’d been Perenelle, she’d often wished that she possessed Nicolas’ affinity for spells. While she’d been able to master some of the spells in the books and scrolls they’d acquired, she’d never managed the ease and power he’d been able to acquire. After taking the elixir, she’d been able to use only the most simple of spells. She’d hoped, with the centuries of practice open to her, that she could match him, but it seemed that part of her mind had been burned and scarred by the elixir. While her skill with alchemy and chemistry had slowly returned and even blossomed, while she still found the Tarot to be a useful tool, she remained eternally a novice with magic and spells.
The new explosives she’d developed were at least as potent as Nicolas’ magic, but more … comprehensive. Nicolas could select and kill a single person in a crowded room with his black lightning; she’d seen that. She could control the timing of an explosion from the chemicals she mixed either through an infused timing cord, a watch mechanism, or even via the small store of spells she was capable of learning. But while she could ensure that an explosion would take out Nicolas, it would do the same to everyone—innocent or guilty—within several strides of him, and potentially wound dozens more with shrapnel or simply the concussive force of the blast.
She wanted Nicolas dead, but she wasn’t willing to take other lives with him, no matter how much she desired to remove him.
I won’t be like him. I won’t.
Still, this was her best defense against Nicolas: that and a handgun, which were becoming more reliable and more powerful with each passing decade. She’d purchased a Gasser-Kropatschek Officer’s Revolver, made here in Vienna—a weapon in use throughout the region. If she could stop Nicolas, render him unconscious or helpless for just long enough to strike his head from his body … and for that, she had a meticulously sharpened officer’s saber in her apartment. That would serve.
Verdette meowed on her lap, glaring through the archway of the small workroom into the reception room and the door of her suite. She heard a knock a moment later. The sound startled her and she grabbed for the revolver, already loaded on the table, before she felt the touch of the soul-heart outside. “Gustav?” she called. “Are you alone?”
“Ja,” she heard him reply, his voice muffled through the wood.
“A moment …” she called out. Verdette grumbled as she rose from the chair and threw a sheet over the table laden with chemicals, retorts, and measured vials. She put the revolver in the pocket of her robe. She re-tied the sash of her nightgown, stained here and there with the splash and stains of chemicals. She brushed her hair back with her hand as she went to the door. “You’re alone?” she asked again as she put her hand on the chain.
“I’ve already told you that,” Gustav answered, irritation coloring his voice and the hue of his soul-heart. Gabriele unfastened the chain and clicked the lock, turned the door handle as she opened the door enough that he could slide in, her hand on the revolver’s wooden grip and her finger on its trigger. It was only Gustav; she let her hand slide from the weapon as she closed and locked the door again.
“I’m sorry, Gustav,” she said, “but I wasn’t dressed …”
He looked at her and grunted. “So I see.” Without asking her permission he shrugged his coat from his shoulder and draped it over the nearest chair. He plunged a hand into the side pocket of his jacket. “You left the ball the other night so abruptly, and you haven’t been to the studio in two days. You’re truly ill?”
She shrugged. “Not anymore. I’m feeling much better now. How was the ball? Was Emilie a sufficient substitute for me?”
He smiled momentarily at that. “I don’t think you’re as subtle as you think you are, Gabriele. But ja, she and I got along very well. And you aren’t jealous?”
“I’ve already told you, Gustav. I love you, but I’ve no interest in being in love with you. She already is. Are you with her?”
“You’re impertinent.”
“I’m truthful,” she answered. “And I wasn’t ill. I was just giving Emilie the room she needed. I like her, Gustav. She’s the one you need, much more than you need me.” Gabriele pulled the robe tighter around her shoulders as Verdette rubbed against her ankles. She bent down to pick up the cat, making certain that she held her front paws in case she decided to strike at Gustav. Verdette purred, but her eyes were on Gustav and her tail lashed angrily. “The man you wanted to see at the ball—he was the one who came up to you and Emilie after the first quadrille?”
“Yes. Herr Anton Srna, who is here for the Amateur-Kunst Photography exhibition, where he’s displaying some of his prints. A photographer must know silver, so why not gold also?” Gustav pulled his hand from his pocket, displaying a small cardboard box; he opened it and showed it to her. A packet of several sheets of tissue paper lay inside, and he lifted the top sheet to show her a delicate rectangle of gold foil nestled between the sheets. She could see the gleaming edge lift with her breath, like an impossibly-thin autumnal leaf. “A sample: easily half the price I would have paid at Mörtenbock’s or Heldwein’s. I had it assayed and it’s genuine—and as finely hammered as any foil I’ve seen. The man wasn’t lying. He says he can supply me with as much as I like. I’m meeting him tonight at Gösser Bierklini to finalize the deal.”
“How do you know that the rest will be as good as the sample?”
“It will, or he’ll live to regret that mistake,” Gustav said. The grin he gave then was ugly; Gabriele knew Gustav’s predilection for picking fights when he was drunk. He seemed to enjoy the pounding of fists into flesh and the blood that followed. More than once he’d come to the studio with eyes purpled and swollen from having been in an altercation the night before, too sore and hungover to paint, but strangely happy.
Gabriele rubbed Verdette’s ears. “Be careful, Gustav. You don’t know this man.”
“He’ll need to be the careful one, if he thinks he can cheat me.” Gustav sniffed. “Oh, and I nearly forgot. He mentioned that he also wanted to meet y
ou, my dear.”
The statement made her shiver, as if the chill March wind had found its way into her room. Her arms tightened around Verdette, who mewled inquiringly. “Me? He said that?”
Gustav shrugged. “He said he would like to meet the model for ‘Girl From Tanagra.’ He told me that he found the painting intriguing, and that he particularly likes women with red hair. Perhaps you’d like him, as well, eh? A man who can afford to sell gold for less than it’s worth? Maybe you could love him but not be in love with him also.” Gustav laughed.
“What did you tell him?” Gabriele asked. “About meeting me?”
“I told him that you’d be at my studio tomorrow. You will be, won’t you? I need you to model.”
A momentary fear ran through her, and she had to remind herself that this was what she’d wanted, what she’d planned for, and that settled her once again. She smiled at Gustav and released Verdette, who padded away. “Of course,” she said. “Tell Herr Srna that I very much look forward to making his acquaintance. Tomorrow. At the studio.”
Gustav laughed. He took a step toward her, one hand touching her face. She kissed his palm as his other hand untied the sash of her robe and let it fall open. Chill air touched her. “What do you have in your pocket?” he asked. “Your robe is so heavy.”
“It’s nothing,” she told him as his hands roamed her exposed body. “Gustav, your meeting tonight …”
“That is hours away yet,” he said. “Let me spend one of those hours, at least, with you …”
*
The Gösser Bierklini was a tavern and restaurant located at Steindlgasse 4, near the Palais Obissi. It was one of Gustav’s regular stops, she knew—he’d taken her there several times in the year she’d been his model. The area around the tavern was fairly well-traveled, though after midnight it was far less so.
She knew Gustav well enough that she was certain he would stay drinking with Nicolas far into the night, and that Nicolas’ manner toward Gustav would be soothing enough that there’d be no altercations. After Gustav left her, she dressed and followed him to his house—he lived with his mother and his sister—and had the carriage driver wait until she saw him leave for the tavern. She had her driver follow his fiacre, stopping the carriage well down from the tavern and waiting as Gustav entered the establishment. Several minutes later, she saw Nicolas, walking down the street from the opposite direction toward the Bierklini. She watched him go in, then paid her driver and stepped out onto the street as well.
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