Thomas Ochiltree (31 page)

“Yes, Captain?”

“If Your Majesty will permit me an observation, I suspect that the author of the scheme was Prince von Lipprecht, who drew His Highness the Archduke into it.”

Certainly, von Falkenburg could not imagine Putzi taking a back seat to anyone.

“Perhaps you’re right, Captain, perhaps you’re right,” the old man replied.

“Tell me, Captain,” he went on, “how did you learn of the plot?”

“It was by inspiration, so to speak, that I realized what the plotters were up to, Your Majesty. Only later did I discover that my inspiration was well-founded.”

“Inspiration?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I went one night to the Imperial Crypt. And there the sight of the Four Crowns of Empire on the sarcophagi made me realize that while the plotters could not promise the Russians the whole Empire, they might be able to help them to a part of it – for their own benefit.”

“You sought inspiration in the Imperial Crypt, Captain? Ah, but that does not surprise me from a member of your family.”

There was a ghost of a smile on the aged lips.

“And central to the arrangement with the Russian was to be the ongoing delivery of military secrets which would eventually so weaken the Empire that it could not defend itself against a Russian attack, is that not so, Captain?”

“I believe it is, Your Majesty. The Empire defeated, a puppet Hungary could be set up to serve Russian interests.”

“Was Prince von Lipprecht such a friend of Russia, Captain?”

“Prince von Lipprecht was a friend only of himself, Your Majesty. He doubtless intended to wield effective power in Budapest, with His Highness the Archduke serving as figurehead king. And whatever the Russians may have planned on, I am sure the real interests Prince von Lipprecht would have served would have been his own.”

“What happened next, Captain?”

“According to the account I received from Colonel von Lauderstein, whom Prince von Lipprecht later murdered, the actual espionage was carried out by underlings: by himself and by a Lieutenant Röderer, who shot himself while under arrest. But someone must have been clumsy. Military Intelligence discovered that espionage was going on, and began an investigation. Presumably it was initially focused on Röderer, but there was no guarantee it would stop there – particularly if Röderer, under arrest, decided to talk.”

“So the conspirators decided to cover their tracks by diverting attention onto someone else?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“But why
you,
Captain? That is the thing I find most puzzling about this whole affair.”

“Precisely because it would be puzzling, Your Majesty. They sought to divert attention as far from themselves as possible by framing
someone with no connection to them of any kind.
Someone they had never even met.”

“Someone chosen at random?”

“Virtually, Your Majesty. Certain categories of people were excluded because they were felt to be unsuitable. Prince von Lipprecht refused to allow an officer of Jewish background to be chosen, for instance, because mindful of the French Dreyfus affair, he feared that would attract too much attention and publicity.”

“So, Captain, they decided upon a member of the old aristocracy, one who had not kept up his connections at Court, and who had no influential protector.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Someone who in order to protect his family would ‘take the honorable way out’ rather than face a hopeless trial?”

“Exactly, Your Majesty.” For all his age, von Falkenburg realized, the Emperor still had a perceptive mind.

“And then, I suppose, Captain, having narrowed their choice down in this fashion, they more or less picked you by chance.”

“That is what I understand from Colonel von Lauderstein, Your Majesty.” He did not wish to point out that his poverty probably also made him desirable as a scapegoat.

“Ah,” the Emperor said, “but for all their would-be cunning, they made a fatal mistake, did they not?”

“Your Majesty?”

“They chose a von Falkenburg as their victim! There are some things, Captain, which connections at Court and ruthless scheming cannot match: the courage and loyalty of a family such as yours.”

“Your Majesty is too kind,” von Falkenburg said.

“Not at all, Captain, not at all,” the old man replied, warming to his topic. “What was it your great grandfather cried at Leipzig? ‘The 23rd Dragoons, follow me!’ That was before my time, of course. But your grandfather stood in my lines at Königgrätz, and gave his life there!”

Despite the Emperor’s snowy side whiskers, it was hard for von Falkenburg to grasp completely what after all was a simple historical fact: that as a young man, Franz Joseph had commanded the army at the ill-fated Battle of Königgrätz, where von Falkenburg’s grandfather had lost his life a half-century ago. Perhaps hardest of all was to imagine Franz Joseph as having ever been young, for his elderly appearance had a sort of timeless and perpetual quality to it.

“No, Captain,” the old man went on, “your family has never been forgotten. Not by me. And like your ancestors, you have served me well, although success came to you only in the nick of time.”

That was true enough, von Falkenburg knew. When Wroclinski and Rubinstein half carried him into his colonel’s office with the documents, not merely was the fatal eight o’clock about to strike; Rogge was also there, explaining to the colonel that one of his officers was guilty of murder.

Franz Joseph stepped to the window and looked out at the beautiful gardens stretching towards the Gloriette – for they were in Schönbrunn, and not the downtown Hofburg. Von Falkenburg waited for him to speak again, but it was several minutes before he did.

“Captain,” he said, “Prince von Lipprecht, Colonel von Lauderstein, Lieutenant Röderer…they have all received the just reward for their treason here on earth. How God will deal with them, I do not know. But there is one culprit left unpunished.”

Von Falkenburg knew who that was.

“Command of a Regiment in Bosnia-Herzegovina may seem a small punishment for treason, von Falkenburg, although to a young man accustomed to the temptations of Vienna, it may seem harder than you think.”

“But, Captain,” the Emperor continued, “you know the forces that threaten my Empire. My family is the symbol of its unity. I trust you understand why I cannot do more, and I know that as you are a von Falkenburg, I can count on your discretion.”

“Of course, Your Majesty, of course.”

The case then, was to be dropped. Nothing about it had appeared in the press. Nothing would. The assignment of the young Archduke Karl-Maria to one of the most godforsaken ends of the Empire would be announced as taking place at his patriotic wish. As for Putzi’s family, for all their influence they would have to accept that nothing would be done to von Falkenburg for killing him.

Von Falkenburg found he had no quarrel with the Emperor’s decision. He knew who his real enemy had been, and he had faced him man to man, and won. The Archduke Karl-Maria had just been a tool of Putzi’s. A tool like von Lauderstein and the others.

And suddenly, for all the majesty that surrounded his Emperor, von Falkenburg suddenly felt very protective towards this old man, who along held the Empire together, and whose age symbolized its glorious past.

And its future? For that, von Falkenburg intended to strive with all his strength as long as life was left in him.

“I see you do understand,” the old man said. “You understand because you are a von Falkenburg.”

“My day is full,” he went on, “and I fear I cannot spend much more time with you, much as I would like to. Let me turn quickly then to a happier matter. I understand that the banns have been published for your marriage?”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“That is as it should be, for the Habsburgs who rule Austria-Hungary after me will also need the loyalty of the von Falkenburgs to come. Captain, I give to you and your betrothed my congratulations, and a small token of them.”

He took an envelope from the desk – a rather thick envelope – and handed it to von Falkenburg. Von Falkenburg was not sure whether he should open the wedding present now or later. But then he sensed that the audience was, indeed, at an end.

“I thank Your Majesty with all my heart, and on behalf of my fiancée,” he said. He bowed low, and stepped backward out of the room. The Emperor had already turned to his desk to continue his work.

Von Falkenburg waited until he was seated in the carriage that Wroclinski had lent him before he opened the packet.

The documents did not bear the Imperial double-headed eagle at the top, but rather the legend, “Effrussi and Company Bankers, Society with Limited Liability.”

And written across then was the notation, “paid in full by the Clerk of the Privy Purse.”

They were the mortgage papers on the Falkenburg estates.

* * *

Von Falkenburg did not drive directly back to Helena to tell her how his audience with the Emperor had gone. Instead, he had Wroclinski’s coachman take him to the Central Cemetery.

The first grave he visited was marked with just a small wooden cross that was already leaning. Almost effaced by the rain and sun were the painted words, “Anneliese Hupfnagl, June 15 1885 - May 3 1904.”

Annie.

Endrödy’s grave had a stone marker for which his comrades had taken up a collection.

Annie…Endrödy….

Lasky’s headstone was inscribed with incomprehensible Hebrew writing, but also with his name in regular letters. Von Falkenburg had been very glad to learn from the cemetery office that Lasky had a grave of his own. Presumably Eimerband had seen to that.

And von Lauderstein? Did his body ever reach the Black Sea after all? Putzi had doubted that it would.

The final monument von Falkenburg paused before was a great Gothic pile that bore the names of various members of the family which had erected it. But the name that caught von Falkenburg’s eye was freshly cut in the weathered stone: “Prince Robert von Lipprecht.”

And below it, the inscription, “God called him home, to be a faithful angel.”

Von Falkenburg wondered what Putzi would have thought of that.

“Good bye, Putzi,” he said half aloud.

And then he turned and walked away. The past was buried, and he could turn to the future.

With Helena at his side.

The End

Thomas Ochiltree (pronounced OH-kul-tree) was born in New York but grew up in London and studied in the U.S. (Harvard Class of ’70). He is a retired Foreign Service Officer who served in many countries during his 22 years as a U.s. diplomat. Fluent in German, he has long been fascinated with the last years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and with its glittering capital Vienna – the background against which his novel Waltz of Death in Vienna is set. In addition to devoting himself to his various literary interests he works part time on line as a translator, translating documents from German, French, Spanish and Italian into English. He does not have a Facebook page or twitter account, but would be glad to receive and respond to any reader comments on his novel at [email protected]

If you liked
DEATH WALTZ IN VIENNA
, we invite you to enjoy another brilliantly evocative novel by the same author:

CASSANDRA: THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF PRIAM’S DAUGHTERS

A Tale of Troy by Thomas Ochiltree

Cassandra was the Trojan princess offered the ability to see the future by the god Apollo in exchange for agreeing to have sex with him. When she reneged on the promised sex, he added the curse that her prophecies – all accurate – would never be believed, condemning her to a life of frustration. Her agony is made all the greater by the fact that she lived through the Trojan War, and that all her desperate efforts to warn her loved ones and her city of impending disaster would be in vain.

The novel begins when Cassandra – here portrayed as a beautiful and profoundly sensitive young woman – is about to go into the homecoming dinner offered by Clytemnestra, the wife of King Agamemnon, who won Cassandra in the lottery of Trojan women after the fall of Troy. Her prophetic powers tell her that murder awaits both him and her at the hands of Clytemnestra and her lover. She has tried to warn Agamemnon, but of course was not believed. Unsure whether those who descend to the underworld (as she knows she very soon will do) retain any memory, she mentally reviews one last time the whole rich tapestry of the Trojan War as witnessed by her – the essence of the novel – before going to her fate with the firm step of a Trojan princess and of – in Homer’s words – “the most beautiful of Priam’s daughters.”

Thomas Ochiltree
is an emerging historical novelist whose longstanding interest in the classics has led him to read three fourths of the surviving classical Greek and Latin literature in the original texts.

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Red Cat Tales

Los Angeles, California