Revenant Eve (49 page)

“
I
cannot see her,” Margit said.

“I probably won’t either,” the queen stated cheerfully, and saluted them with her watered wine. “Never have seen one.”

But you, as a ghost, will seek me out in Vienna
, I thought.

“I am far more interested in discovering how to avoid the threat to Dobrenica that seems poised in all directions. Ghost? What say you?”

Maybe this was the danger after all.

I began to speak, Aurélie repeating my words: “You know from the seers that predicting the future is problematical.” When she agreed, I said, “Then you will understand when I put my statements in the form of conditions. If I am correct, next March, Bonaparte will have the Duc d’Enghien arrested and shot.”

“Condé’s son!” the queen stated. “He works hard to raise the royalists’ standard. He is said to be determined.”

“If that happens, then look to Bonaparte to declare himself emperor,” I said.

“Emperor! Not king, but emperor,” the queen repeated. She set down her fork. “And so the war to the east. For an emperor must have an empire. France is not enough. How far will he go, then?”

“If all these things come to pass,” I said, “then look for him to push all the way to Russia.”

That hit them all hard. Dobrenica was squarely in the way though not on the main roads from east to west. But armies were notorious for not sticking to roads, especially when they needed to forage. And when you had armies of hundreds of thousands of men and horses, that forage basically meant sacking every town, village, farm, and dovecote within raiding distance. And they all knew it. They had grown up hearing their grandparents’ horror stories, told them by
their
grandparents during the Thirty Years’ War.

“This is terrible,” the queen said. “This is terrible. Yes, I hear what your ghost says about conditions, Donna Aurélie, but the wise would take that as a serious threat. Son, you know what must be done. But we will say no more about that now.”

“With respect,” Jaska said, “I will make this suggestion: that we recall our legation from Vienna. We are small. The Emperor will take little notice. All his attention will be westward.”

“I agree. We must get you crowned and on the proper day. At least we have until September, but we would be unwise to dally. We shall together summon the Grand Council tomorrow and fête them afterward, in honor of your safe return.” She looked at her empty plate, and without glancing at the others to see if they were done, she rose. “If we are finished, we shall go downstairs. Minister Ridotski was going to bring your Domnu Zusya to us, that we may hear this music my daughter praised so extravagantly. Donna Aurélie, I trust you will favor us with your talents?”

Mord gave Aurélie a brief bow when he saw her, and Jaska a brief smile, but he seemed preoccupied until they began to play. Then it was like always, the three separate voices threaded together until Mord, eyes closed, took off into his amazing flights. There was a different quality to his extemporaneous solos, a tender, searching, questioning sense.

Margit kept wiping her eyes, and the queen sat as if carved in stone, her chin in her hand. She was so still the diamond on her hand glimmered only with its own gathered light.

When Aurélie looked up, it was to discover that the audience had increased slightly. The queen’s household music master, an elderly gent, had joined them. With him sat Shmuel Ridotski and a young woman in a pearl gray gown. She also wore a beautiful patterned scarf in shades of blue from cobalt to midnight, with golden threads woven in the amaranth pattern. This scarf draped over her head and down her back. She had to be Ridotski’s wife.

On the wife’s other side sat Elisheva, arms crossed, head slightly to one side. The Ridotski pair were silent. When the concert was done, the music master’s attitude toward Mord was respectful bordering on awestruck, and the queen’s voice rang with sincerity when she praised the trio. But she kept looking back at Mord as if a hopping robin had entered her music chamber and metamorphosed into a phoenix.

“We must do this again. Soon,” the queen declared.

Mord bowed, his gaze straying beyond the queen to Elisheva. As the others stood in a group, talking, he looked down at his hands as though surprised to discover them attached to his wrists.

When we were alone, Aurélie said, “What was the queen talking about? Twice she said that Jaska must do something, and she made reference to September, but she didn’t say what. I think she didn’t want me hearing it.”

“Think of it like your necklace, a secret kept because of vows and long habit. Its magic will only work, protecting the borders, if everyone in Dobrenica is living in peace with one another.”

“But this Duke Benedek has not a peaceful demeanor.”

“No.”

“And Irena was very angry when Jaska sent her home with the duke.”

“Yes.”

“So if I were not here…?”

“I don’t think anything would be different,” I said quickly. “Living in peace with one another means acceptance. It doesn’t mean everyone has to be great friends.”

She sighed. “You want me to stay,” she observed, “and I want to. I think. Ah, I’m so confused. But Kim, that dream I told you, where I saw you and me side by side? It was not in this place.”

I
WAS GLOOMY WHEN AURÉLIE WENT TO SLEEP,
and the gloom was still there when she woke. Viorel brought breakfast, after which the army of seamstresses hauled in a ton of clothes. While Aurélie was in the midst of a personalized retail blowout, a note was delivered.

She read it with surprise, then said, “There’s to be some sort of party for someone who is getting married. Princess Margit begs me to play for them.”

That sounded friendly enough. Aurélie spent the morning practicing, since she was not accompanying anyone, and the hours flew by uninterrupted. At noon, she bathed, put on one of her new day dresses, and carried her music case out into the hall. She asked the footman to take her to Queen Karolina’s
salle
—by my time it would have long lost that name—where she found Margit with a lot of other ladies between sixteen and thirty.

The first sign of trouble was the way Margit introduced her after taking her to a beautiful piano and ordering a servant to set a branch of candles near so Aurélie could see her music. The rest of the women were gathered at a long table next to a bank of windows looking out over the terrace and beyond that the garden.

When Aurélie had set up her music, Margit said, “Donna Aurélie de Mascarenhas, the musician from Paris, will entertain us now.” Then she sat down at the table and resumed eating and drinking. And talking.

I think it hit us both at the same time that Aurélie was back in lady-in-waiting status. I could see her mental shrug. This was what she had done for Josephine.

The windows were open to let in the balmy spring air. Some ladies talked, others listened as Aurélie began her performance. At first, she played softly, as she and her fellow musicians had done when providing background music in Paris. But gradually she became more involved, the volume rising when the music required it and softening naturally. At the end of one of her fae songs, a couple of people applauded lightly.

Then Irena called out, “Play something by Haydn. He is my favorite.”

“Oh, Mozart,” someone else said. “I love Mozart.”

“It is Gabrielle’s day. She must choose,” Margit said, and everyone called out,
Mozart, Mozart
.

Aurélie began to play Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 3, and the party went right on. Except for Gabrielle, a slight young lady in a lacy gown of different shades of yellow that complemented her auburn hair. She slipped from her place and came up to the piano, her head swaying back and forth as the treble rippled up and down, her forefinger tapping in time to the dancing rhythm.

At the end she gave Aurélie a sunny smile. “Oh, thank you. That was truly good.
How
I tried to master that and never did.”

“Now it’s time for Haydn,” Irena called.

Gabrielle glanced her way, tucked a curl back, then flitted restlessly to the window, reminding me of a butterfly as Aurélie began Haydn’s Sonata in C.

“Gabrielle?” someone called. “You should hear what Burinka said to the baroness…”

Gabrielle fluttered back to the table, obviously distracted by the romantic, moody music.

At the end, Irena said, “Margit, get her to play Haydn.”

Aurélie flushed. The message was loud and clear: Irena and Margit had undercut the interloper socially with one effective stroke. A lady-in-waiting was a fancy word for servant, and these snotty women were treating her like one.

Aurélie plunged into Beethoven’s Serenade in D Major, which she and Jaska had bought in Vienna. Mord had begun practicing it the first night out of Eisenstadt. It was not written for piano, but Aurélie adapted the violin and cello parts, the melodic line evocative of trumpet flourishes.

As before, the party paid little attention—until, through the open windows, sounded the flute accompaniment, sweet and clear.

One by one the party people became aware of the flute. Then they realized it was not in the room.

Gabrielle flitted to the window to peer out.

Her jaw dropped, and she made a hasty curtsey. The others flocked to the window, peacocks in pastels. Aurélie had known within three notes that Jaska was playing, and brought her hands down on the keys, sending those flourishes ringing.

At the end, the ladies clapped wildly, but he apparently vanished inside, for they all bent forward, a couple of them almost falling out the window as they tried to track him. They walked back to their seats, sat down, talking in Dobreni, mostly wondering what oddness his highness was up to—must be a joke—then the door opened, and there was Jaska, dressed elegantly in his silks, flute in hand.

The ladies shot to their feet to curtsey. “Go on talking,” he invited. “Gabrielle, in your honor.”

Gabrielle turned scarlet with pleasure as Jaska lifted his flute to his lips. He started one of their French airs, and Aurélie began the accompaniment. After playing it through three countries, she had no need of the written music.

Gabrielle listened with eyes closed, and the others perforce in silence. You don’t talk while a prince is playing.

Jaska thus made them sit quietly through six long pieces, and at the end he said, “We will compose an air for your wedding gift, Gabrielle. Come, Aurélie, let’s begin.” He held out his arm.

“My music.”

“Leave it,” Jaska said. “Margit can have it sent to your room later.”

Aurélie placed her fingertips lightly on the crook of his arm, the
warm brown of her skin contrasting with the ice blue of his satin. Was it the first time they had touched? It was the first significant touch. A quick look made it clear they were both aware of it.

Jaska bowed to the guest of honor, nodded to the rest, and as they curtseyed, he led Aurélie out of the room.

When they reached the hall, she lifted her hand. “I’m not quite certain what happened in there, but I thank you for the duet.”

“In war, I would call it maneuvering,” Jaska said. “I don’t know what the women call it. Perhaps my manners leave something to be desired. I learned all the outward forms of etiquette before I left for Poland but only practiced in Warsaw. Since then,” he cast her a rueful glance, “my closest companions for the longest time were only lice.”

“And Mord.”

“Who falls short of the ideal as a dance partner.” When she laughed, he said more seriously, “The Eldest, who has the greatest Sight, is very old. He lives in a village on Mount Dhiavilyi. Fritzl von Mecklundburg, my sister’s son—but we’ve always thought of one another as cousins, being the same age—he will invite you to Gabrielle’s wedding, which will take place at the Eyrie at the week’s end. We can visit the Eldest quietly during the merrymaking.”

“But surely people would notice and ask questions if we leave.”

Jaska laughed. “Wait until you see the Eyrie. You’ll understand. It’s like a fortified city, only everyone lives under four connected roofs, instead of numerous separate ones, the servants tucked away in corners with their own warren of halls that no one else sees. Everyone says the first duke who built it was a madman, and once you try to find your way around in there, you’ll agree.” He leaned against one of the deep inset windows and began describing the Eyrie, while outside, a series of pretty little pony carts lined up along the garden path below one of the side doors.