Song of Seduction (22 page)

Mathilda marveled at his success. Within an hour of Ingrid’s summons, he had tactfully identified the landlord of Arie’s studio, plying the unsuspecting businessman with florins enough to ensure both cooperation and silence. In that way, the Venners worked as a time-tested team despite their young marriage. He maneuvered, providing influence and contacts, while she provided money and a gently prodding will.

When Mathilda and the
Kapellmeister
arrived at Getreidegasse 26, Oliver waited for them at street level. He did not stand guard so much as…watch—intently, and at Venner’s insistence. Speculation could damage Arie’s career no matter his destination or his motives for leaving.

With shaking hands, Mathilda used the key that Arie had given the
Kapellmeister.
The door swung open on rusted hinges to reveal a barren, lifeless space. Haydn gently moved Mathilda to the side, leaving her immobile in the doorway as he searched the tiny rooms.

“No, he’s not here,” Haydn said, his voice shaded with relief. “And most of his possessions are gone.”

Mathilda shared his relief, granting permission for the balm to wash through her, easing the most immediate of her fears. Arie had left, but he had not abandoned her as thoroughly, as irrevocably, as had her mother.

But questions remained, crowding her brain with an insistent pressure. Her pulse rushed and leaped. Why? Why had he gone?

She shivered, searching for anything to reveal Arie’s whereabouts. Too many shadows teased her with the past. Silent and damp, the studio represented a pale reminder of emotion that had heated its small space. The pianoforte remained, as did the cello and the music stands. A faint layer of dust already coated those essential tools of his trade. But he had taken the violin and his meager collection of clothing. The dull surface of the worktable was bare.

Mathilda walked to the painted cupboard and opened doors left ajar. At the bottom of the hollow and otherwise empty cabinet, she found a portfolio half-stuffed with parchment sheets.

At her shoulder, Haydn asked, “Anything?”

“Papers. Compositions, I believe.”

“Perhaps I should go downstairs? Bring fire for a candle?”

“Never mind, sir.”

She pulled the portfolio from the cupboard and laid its contents atop the silent piano. By the window overlooking the narrow cobblestone lane, Mathilda used the last light of late afternoon to see which compositions Arie had abandoned.

Love and Freedom.

She examined the handwriting, noting the tight, clear script. Each note sported a flag standing perpendicular to its staff. Studiously neat, the writing belonged to an individual charged with the reverential care of another’s work. A careful copy. By contrast, Arie’s original creations always emerged in manic scribbles as his hand struggled to keep pace with inspiration.

Conscious of the
Kapellmeister
’s curious gaze, Mathilda shuffled the incriminating score to the bottom of the portfolio and searched for more. Her eyes caught on the sight of her own name. “Mathilda’s Movement.” Her heart jumped. A cry formed in her throat, but she swallowed it down, choking on his rejection.

He had abandoned their composition, just as he had abandoned her.

“What do you see? I fear my eyes aren’t up to the task of reading in this light. The works are his?” Maybe Mathilda hesitated too long. Maybe Haydn had been waiting for the right opportunity to broach the subject. No matter the impetus, he nodded in the silence. “
Love and Freedom,
then?”

She jerked free of her name scrawled by Arie’s hand. Like trying to see through thick smoke, her eyes stung. Her voice emerged as a hoarse croak. “You knew?”

“
Ja,
and I’ve handled the whole situation none too well. It really does me no credit.” In vain, he searched the room as if for a comfortable seat before leaning heavily against the piano. “I did not invite De Voss to come to Salzburg because of that symphony. I prefer his sacred works, but such is my preference overall. And his skill at the piano is truly exceptional. I thought—ah, I thought to leave the past to the past. But that has proven easier said than done.”

“He…when I last saw him, his crime devastated him,” Mathilda said, briefly outlining the suitable details of their argument.

Haydn surprised her by laughing in disbelief. “And he understands so little of this business?”

“How do you mean?”

“My dear woman, your friend Lord Venner—would he care if De Voss or Beethoven or even one of the famous Haydn brothers had written
Love and Freedom?
Or some late unknown Hungarian, for that matter?”

Mathilda smiled. The thought of Venner noticing, let alone genuinely caring about such a matter, amused her despite the tension. “Of course not.”

“And neither would the majority of Europe. De Voss claimed the Hungarian’s work as his own, which was dishonest. But the music survived. That man’s last pupil and his final musical project, both have flourished.” He returned her smile, an expression mixed from equal parts sentimentality and cynicism. “I wouldn’t necessarily be displeased by such a circumstance, unless someone attributed my work to my brother by mistake.”

The venerated composer’s easy acceptance of Arie’s theft stunned her. “Is that what you would have told him?”

“
Ja,
and I should have.” He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and rubbed his eyes, smoothing his spiky eyebrows when he finished. “My mother was a cook and my father was a wheelwright. Joseph, my brother—he sang as we imagine angels would sing. I don’t know what my musical career would have been without the luck of his early successes. Your Dutchman found a little luck, too.”

“The trouble will be convincing him.”

“If you cannot convince him, Frau Heidel, then I no longer want to know the man.” He turned back to the jumble of music sheets. “May I see the other piece?”

Mathilda silently relinquished the parchment clenched in her hands, her heart in shreds.

Haydn stared at the score, concentrating deeply. “Yours?”

“The motif, yes.”

“He held back to accommodate it,” he said with a fond smile. “I don’t think any of us knows what he’s truly capable of—least of all him.”

A knock at the door made both musicians jump. Oliver identified himself before opening the door. “Frau Heidel, Kapellmeister Haydn, the landlord stopped by to provide these letters. He had been holding them for Herr De Voss.”

Mathilda received the small bundle of correspondence with hands that refused to be steady. “Thank you, Oliver.” She opened the twine binding and spread a dozen notices atop the composition sheets. “Maas, Perger, Schrattenbach—do you recognize these names, sir?”

“Students of his, I believe.”

She read one. “Dear Sir, we desire to understand your absence from Anton’s lesson on Tuesday last.” And another. “Dear Herr De Voss, your failure to keep the appointment for our son’s piano instruction is highly irregular and requires explanation.”

The contents of each letter echoed similar sentiments. In the handful of days since leaving Salzburg, Arie had disappointed a great many families.

“But nothing from the Schindlers,” she said, sliding letter over letter in her search. “Sir, was he still teaching the Schindlers’ boys?”

Haydn had promised to write when he unearthed any details. Waiting wore her to a frazzle. Days lapsed, each pulling her nerves into thinner shreds and tossing her between sadness, concern and anger.

Why did he leave?

God, keep him safe.

Idiot man!

His rejection stung less and less with the passing of hours, or so she worked hard to believe. Arie De Voss could boast a long and storied history of his own idiocy, the capacity for which had long since outpaced her imagination. She would find the man. And then what, exactly?

Hit him.

That was first on her list. She would proceed to haranguing, berating, scolding and kissing, while the order for those tasks remained subject to circumstance. Beneath the dining table, Mathilda balled her hands into fists like rocks. Anger nourished her resolve and held other, more frightening emotions at bay.

Reluctantly she wondered how much inspiration he had drawn from her theatrics. Turnabout was fair play, after all. She had abandoned him for weeks without explanation. Granted, she had stayed in the city, but Arie must have experienced a similar sense of doubt and anxiety over her wordless refusal of his love. She would have to apologize again, to ask his forgiveness and understanding.

Sometime after the hitting and the kissing.

Ingrid buttered a piece of dark bread and regarded her with an almost maternal look of concern. “Tilda, you must eat.”

She smiled inwardly at how much Ingrid appeared to enjoy their apparent role reversal. Rarely had the younger woman found herself in the position to dote. Or maybe, while awaiting the birth of her own child, she wished to make the most of any opportunity to hone her skills.

But despite her friend’s best intentions, Mathilda no longer wanted sympathy. That she needed to request even more assistance from the Venners, no matter their willingness to help, galled her. She simply wanted to vent the mean temper building and pulsing within her. Ingrid’s well-meaning words of concern and her bright optimism only served to remind her that the situation might not end well. Klaus and Elisabet Roth had loved each other fiercely, but their love had not afforded a happy life.

Idiot man,
she thought again.
Be angry.

“Dearest?”

“If I were hungry, Ingrid, I would eat.”

Her wounded look made Mathilda reconsider.
Be angry at Arie.
“Forgive me,” she said softly.

“Of course.” But the luster of Ingrid’s cheerfulness had dimmed.

Venner sipped his coffee. “De Voss has demonstrated a capricious nature, as if he is merely playing the part of an artist. I wonder what sort of man he is in truth.”

He dropped his gaze, returning to his morning examination of trade ledgers and correspondences. Mathilda stared in surprise. Ingrid, regarding her husband as she would some rare species of insect, dissected his unexpected contribution with a tiny scowl.

“Christoph may be right,” she said with a dainty shrug. A hint of a smile tilted the corners of her lips, indicating a return to her good humor. “Once you get him back and curb this temperamental streak of his, he may be useless as a composer.”

A footman entered the dining room and bowed. “Frau Heidel, a correspondence for you.”

Mathilda fairly tore open the missive and read Haydn’s single sentence. “De Voss is with the Schindlers in Henndorf.”

An hour later, Mathilda departed Salzburg for the first time.

As Oliver navigated the smaller of the Venners’ two carriages through narrow streets, she sat beside him on the driver’s bench. When the matched team stepped onto the Staatsbrücke, she clenched her eyes tightly. Nothing escaped her nervous fingers, alternately gripping the handholds and fingering her silver chain.

“A lovely sight, Frau Heidel, is it not?”

At the sound of Oliver’s innocent, awed voice, she could not help but look. And she sat a little taller on the bench.

The Salzach flowed tranquilly below them. Barriers of marble and stone lined both of its rocky banks as citizens worked and walked along the waters, forging varied lives. Gentle mountains topped with grassy summits blended into the horizon, obscuring the green-hued river’s sharp northward bend. Beyond the horses’ ears, the sharp mount known as Kapuzinerberg bloomed with beech trees and bristled with remnants of crumbled centuries-old fortifications. The yellow-beige bricks of the Kapuzinerkloster, the Capuchin monastery, poked out from the lush canvass of foliage.

While her deep-seated distrust of the Salzach threatened to mar her enchantment, Mathilda had to agree with Oliver. The city was beautiful, nearly flawless. Without the binding shelter of endless stories-high buildings and the steep walls of Mönchsberg, she experienced a heady rush of openness and freedom.

Within minutes they neared Sebastiankirche, the sight of which fueled Mathilda’s determination. For all her girlish discontent, she was a stronger woman because of Jürgen’s steady presence and the affection and toil they had shared. Her late husband had lived a quiet life of good deeds, and she felt bound to honor his contribution to her character. She owed her husband that much.

Oliver directed the horses beyond all of Mathilda’s familiar markers. Short of the Linzer Tor, the ancient boundary marking the northernmost extent of the city, they stopped in front of the Blue Pike. Oliver stepped from the driver’s bench and entered the tavern without a word. He returned a few minutes later, accompanied by a stocky man of an indeterminate middle age.

“This is Herr Mullen,” Oliver said. “He’s agreed to guide us.”

Mathilda nodded a greeting. “How long will it take to reach Henndorf?” she asked.

Deep creases marked Mullen’s face around the mouth and eyes, and round ruddy cheeks indicated a fondness for strong drink. He dragged a hand through his sparse graying hair, a gesture that reminded her of Arie despite the physical differences characterizing each man.

He replied with a curiously nasal voice. “Just shy of twelve miles. Make the trip on horseback, mostly. By carriage we’ll arrive this evening, late.”

“Thank you.”

Mullen said nothing, but he smiled and rattled the little bag of florins Oliver must have used to secure his guidance.

Mathilda accepted Oliver’s assistance as she transferred to the open carriage’s rear seat, while Mullen climbed up to share the driver’s bench.

Despite a parasol angled to shade her face, Mathilda suffered under the bright sun. Beneath clinging silk, sweat dampened her underarms and back. Hair that Klara had carefully arranged only that morning frizzed into a brown mess. She dozed. She was certain to have freckled. And she practically ruined the hem of her gown’s decorative ribbon, worrying the frail fabric with her equally ragged fingernails.

Every time she considered what she would say to Arie, her heart rattled. She was going to find him. But what if he didn’t want to be found? Mathilda gripped the wooden handle of her parasol and watched mile after familiar mile slip past.

The trio stopped in Eugendorf to change horses and eat. As with her failed attempt at breakfast, Mathilda merely picked at her savory omelet. Although famished, she could not eat—not while bearing the twin burdens of travel and worry.

Darkness overtook them and a light rain began to fall. Oliver stopped the carriage to raise its cover, protecting Mathilda from the strengthening rains. Far below, in a secluded valley, the faint lights of Henndorf shone as their beacon. Two mountains and a lake called Wallersee delimited the village’s modest collection of houses and workshops.

The rain intensified. Oliver’s careful maneuvers could not prevent the wheels from skidding on water-washed patches of stone. As the vehicle descended the hillside, the horses fought for footing. Inside the closed carriage, Mathilda suffered a disconcerting fear. She stared uselessly into the dark and suffered every jolting, blinded bump. Although she clung to handholds, she could not adequately brace her body against the uneven descent.

Pitched without mercy, she experienced a brief flash of relief when the carriage finally stopped—stranded with a broken axle.