The gesture, so like the tenor’s, said more to me of what he meant.
I do enjoy hearing you sing my compositions, he said. But even so . . .
I understand, Your Highness, I said.
Do you? I wonder, he said. I wonder if you do.
I did. All of the mysteries of my arrangement with both men were finally clear to me. I was something the Prince had bought for his favorite. I waited, saying nothing. I wanted us to arrive at the next moment, the one where he told me what I needed to do. I was sure it was next.
For love of him, I cannot destroy you. But perhaps we can cooperate. You want to leave, and I also want this. I will give you your freedom on the condition you act as if you were escaping. The reward is rich. Will you hear me out?
Very well, Your Highness, I said.
Excellent, he said. Let us plan your escape.
The reward was rich. The apartment on the avenue de l’Opéra would finally belong to me outright, papers drawn up to that effect. An account also would be created in my name, with an annual income to be drawn until my death.
He handed me a Paris banker’s card with the sum of 500,000 francs, written in pen.
Was this the Comtesse’s secret, then? I nearly laughed.
It would offend me greatly if a hero of this war was to live the life so many of your kind do, he said. I would not want to pass the rue des Martyrs and see you eating in that little café for impoverished singers. If you should still end up there, at least hide if you should ever see my retinue.
I promised I would.
He will speak to you the next morning of how we hope to honor you as a hero, the Prince said. When he does, you will see, right then, what you must do, what I am asking you to do. You will then depart, and a horse or a train or anything you like will be provided. Simply tell me now. Do this one thing more for me, then, he said. And all will be as you wish.
No one who had ever had my life in their hands had tired of it yet except for me. But I’d met the author of the tenor’s strategies—he as eager to keep the tenor as the tenor was to keep me—and so as I left his presence, a wild hope ran through me like a fever.
If anyone could free me from the tenor, it was the Prince.
§
The tenor came in the morning, as promised. I had not slept long, but deeply all the same. He brought a tray of coffee with cream as well as bread and butter with gooseberry jam. He set it down and went about the room opening windows. Good morning, comprimaria, he said.
Good morning, I said.
He cleared his throat as he sat down on the bed and began spreading jam on the bread for both of us. He set mine in front of me.
This is a breakfast my mother used to make for me, he said. He pointed to the gooseberry jam. She made this from a tree that still grows in her Garten. If I was very good, she brought the jam out. We used it very sparingly. It was precious.
I brought the bread to my lips. The flavor was sweet and tart. All food was still too rich for me, but I was slowly getting used to it. I didn’t want to retch up my hero’s breakfast, though, so I took just a nibble, and smiled.
We owe you a great debt. You were instrumental in our victory. You began as an important ally in the service of the Comtesse, bringing crucial information to us on the activities of the imperial consort. We had suspected that the affairs of state were more and more her responsibility—the Emperor was in the grip of a nervous decline, in increasingly great pain. Thanks to you, we were able to know just how often she met with visiting heads of state during an important period diplomatically.
I was still in my nightgown, still in bed. I could smell the wind coming off the river, the freshness of it commanding me like a spell. I longed to leap from edge of the castle into the river in one long dive, to feel the relief of the water taking me in, down to the bottom. A Rhinemaiden at last. I would never survive it, though it would be a beautiful death, but I no longer wanted death. I wanted to live again, stupid as that had seemed even just the day before. I wanted my freedom. And, I understood, I nearly had it. I had only to pass this last test the Prince had set.
There was always a last test and never any guarantee this would truly be the last. And yet I had to try once more.
Did you ever guess what the Comtesse did with that weekly accounting of her clothes?
He smiled, his hands behind his back, as if the answer to his question were there.
I shook my head—half a lie. I knew whatever he had in mind would go better for me if he believed I knew nothing. I also wanted to hear what he would say.
She asked me to never speak of it to you until after we had succeeded, he said. When the secret would not matter. Her plan was to make the Emperor believe your mission frivolous, a bit of theater concocted from her desire to know the Empress’s styles so as to imitate her first and best. Instead, your little lists told a tale of how often Eugénie sat with the Emperor, or even in place of him, and sometimes even with whom she met and for how long.
This cheered him to think of it, and he spoke it all through a smile.
When I found you at Compiègne, hidden in that disguise, I did not suspect your mission, and I admit I was furious at your escape. But even though each of us did not guess the other’s purpose that afternoon, we helped each other even then. When you told me of those angry ladies waiting for their tea invitations and how the Empress kept them waiting, I knew then the Empress sat on the council for war. Nothing less would have kept her from those teas. This confirmed that our actions in Spain would bait France into war—when we chose a new king for Spain.
He hesitated here.
Yes. We were set to do it, but when we knew Eugénie held the command, we knew she, a Spaniard, would take it as a powerful slight and would act. And so she did. This woman who could not even manage the affairs of the Tuileries Palace set France on the path to war. You gave us the ability to strike without doubt.
These Napoléons, they just play at being emperors. They think it is all clothes and jewels, parties and parades. I am sure she was the one who sent the Emperor and the Prince to the front. This put the entire imperial line of descent at risk. When we captured the Emperor and the heir, we had everything. The only person who did not or would not understand this was the Empress, who believed she still held power back in Paris—she was only ever the vessel for an heir no matter how much of the statecraft he let her play at. She believed in her power until she was chased from the palace, I think.
Her mocked her, his hands twirling by his head, as if running while wearing a very heavy wig.
When I did not laugh, he said, We should make her a present. Send her flowers. He laughed at this as if to laugh for us both.
How I longed to surprise him, to shock him—him and the Prince both. I wanted to do the one thing they did not expect or plan for, even as I knew I couldn’t be certain of what that might be—it seemed they had planned for everything.
The tenor continued to speak, certain of his goal, whatever it was.
Only after you escaped and I returned to Paris, and the Comtesse contacted me to arrange for our reunion, only then did I know you’d left precisely because I’d interrupted you. She explained you had to return to her with your report despite your desire to return with me. I was amazed. I think I laughed in terror for an entire day at what could have happened if I had succeeded that day in taking you with me. I was so angry at you, but you were right. You were right to escape me. Please forgive me.
This little lie of hers was strangely poignant to hear as he took my hand in his and kissed it gently, kneeling before me. When he looked up, though I knew he meant to be impish, his face was only a mask for the hurt; I could see he still felt to think of that time when he had nearly failed his mission. And the love he had for me there, protected by that same lie.
He did not know, then. He still believed I had returned because I loved him.
Ah. You pity the Empress, he said, as he searched my eyes for a clue to my thoughts. But you should n
ot. He shrugged and then smiled as if to console me for the foolishness of my sympathies.
I tipped my head down, and he reached to pull my chin back up, checking to see if I wept. When he saw I did not, his earlier uncertainty seemed to grow and overwhelm him.
He withdrew a package from within his coat, tied in another of those blue and white handkerchiefs. He tugged and off it fell to reveal a bronze medallion, a cross hanging from a blue and white ribbon with gold bars, one that read PARIS and the other, COMPIÈGNE. At the edges of the cross, Gott war mit uns, Ihm sei die Ehre.
God was with us, to Him the glory.
With our thanks, he said. For your invaluable service.
He pinned it to my chest.
He withdrew a scroll then and tied it tightly with another of these ribbons and unrolled a declaration honoring me as a citizen of Germany and a hero of the war with an income to be given in gratitude for my service.
I rubbed at the bar along the ribbon of the medal that read PARIS. Should this say TUILERIES instead? I asked.
No, he said. Paris. It is correct. He looked to the medal on my chest and smiled at it as if it were greeting him. There was some discussion as to whether you should receive the bronze or the steel, he said. The bronze is for combat duty, soldiers on the front line only. The bronze medals are made from the rifles of the defeated French—there’s more honor in them, he said, and placed the scroll down beside me. Steel for everything else. But I insisted, as you were there at the front like the rest.
A memory of the Commune soldiers’ bayonets, their bread perched on each one, passed through me as I looked down.
He smiled at me, still uncertain as he knelt again. Will you forgive me? he asked.
What am I to forgive? I asked.
He blinked. Yes, he said. And here he seemed truly ashamed. I did use you, you see. I sought to punish you. I never expected you to come to me. I was sure you’d betray us to the Commune and choose to die with them, and so I conspired to use you quite foully. I gave you bad information I was sure you would pass to them. But when I heard you had made it as far as Metz, it was then I knew you had faithfully done all I’d asked, that you were mine; you truly belonged to me.
He had said this to me before, and as I heard it, I felt as if I were vanishing into all the other times he had said this to me, returning to a single place where I was always leaving him, and on my return, he was always saying something of this kind.
This occasion was different, though.
This was, to be sure, quite a spectacle, his kneeling before me, tentative, even afraid, but it was also not the moment the Prince had told me to watch for—surely I was not meant to repudiate this gift or insult it—and if this was not the moment, then why was he here and what was the moment? I knew the tenor meant for all this to enlist me, somehow. This gift was meant to deny the very real distance between us, a distance he at least knew was there even if he could not admit to it or know it for what it was, and this was what he sought to close now in order to begin whatever next life he believed waited for us. He wanted me to believe I was as he believed I was, his beloved, the recuperating invalid, nearly well, and apparently, if I understood him, a hero in the war, if unwillingly and unknowingly. But he could never close this distance between us because he still did not know why I had been returned to him. He was gathering everything in himself to keep me here forever, sure he would succeed even as another plan was already in motion to keep us apart—a plan set in place by the man who had always controlled him.
He did not know. He did not know his place here, and I did. Mine was the upper hand. And so I listened as if I believed him and waited for my moment.
We must speak of something of great importance, he said, his voice hard and confident again. I nodded for him to continue.
After your debut in Leipzig, I ask that you do the honor of becoming my wife. We can be married in the very church where Mozart was choirmaster.
This, of course, was what the Prince had meant. I knew at last what the Prince wanted from me now.
You must never escape me again, he said.
I laughed.
The tenor, descended from a noble if not too noble Prussian family, one of the younger sons with an eldest brother who’d bred heirs early and successfully, had once told me the best he could hope for was an estate of his own some day and a few dutifully produced heirs, though their fates would have circumstances even more diminished than his. The gift of being his father’s third most important son was that he was free to have his musical career and live as he liked there in Germany or abroad. For him to marry an untitled woman from an uncertain background would guarantee he would lose his claim—not just to his money and lands, but to the company of his family. And as I knew well, he loved them still. He would not give them up for me no matter what he believed, and they would never accept me.
The challenges before me were precise. I had to fulfill my agreement with the Prince and yet I could not cut the tenor so deeply that I lost my value to him, and thus to the Prince. If I did that, I would be dead before I reached the border.
I also needed to protect myself. I would be a fool to rely only on the Prince’s word and his little declaration, which the tenor had shown me so proudly. I needed to ensure my own safety and perhaps enact even a little revenge. And as I had spent this time among my captors observing them, I knew there was one way to do all that I wanted, and at that moment, I saw it as clearly as the tenor’s eyes before me. I nearly smiled into them in anticipation as I began my surprise.
I stood and removed the medal from the nightdress, which I let fall to the ground until I was naked before him.
What is this? he asked, with a faint smile.
Do you remember? The first time you took me to a dressmaker, you told me you weren’t sure you wanted to dress me at all.
He smiled.
Do you remember that day?
I do, he said. Very well.
I stand before you this way to remind you. We will never marry, I said, and put the medal and the letter together on the mantle.
What is this?
We will never marry. We cannot.
What do you mean?
What do you not understand? If you were to marry me, you could never present me at court. This letter may make me a citizen, but it does not provide me with a noble family or title to match yours.
But I will, he said. And as a hero of the war. You don’t understand.
I do, I said.
I walked to where he stood. He was studying my body, which I understood would look new to him with this monstrous new pallor—it excited him. He was trying to contain this, even acting as if we were playing at an amusement of his devising.
I held out my hand, and he took it, and I drew him with me to the bed. There I sat and crossed my legs and extended my right leg before him. He took it and ran his hand back and forth, smoothing my foot.
The foot never so white as it was then.
I do not refuse you lightly, I said. I do not refuse because I do not love you. I refuse because of the Comtesse.
The Comtesse? She is our friend, he said. And a friend to you. She is even a friend to Paris. You all owe her your lives. Do you know why the shelling stopped? She made it so. She intervened with Bismarck. When she got word he was set to shell Paris to rubble, she left Florence at once and arranged to meet with him. She convinced him it was the greatest possible sin to risk the destruction of the Louvre. She and the Prince, they are very old friends, he said, and gestured at the mirror as if at the Prince. You need not worry about her.
At that, I understood the Prince watched us, hidden. Of course.
Yes, I said. For now. You say she has Bismarck’s ear? What will she say there next? If this great friendship with Germany and Italy was to ever go cold, she would use me as she has used me before, without hesitation. And if I was to refuse her, to hurt you, she would need only to expose me for what I was. If I was your wife, and this came to pass, you would be disgra
ced before Bismarck and all of these ancient families. Can you ensure she would never do this? I think you cannot.
His face fell at last. He looked down to my foot.
You would never forgive yourself, I said. So we cannot marry. You will thank me one day.
I let myself reach out and touch his brow, and he moved against my hand until he kissed my palm. I leaned in then, as if to kiss his ear, and my hair fell around us like a hood. I pushed my finger against his lips.
I said then, in the faintest whisper against his ear, The Prince, he is sending me away.
He turned his head and looked at me, still pressed to my hand. There was death in his eyes, but not for me.
§
Back in my apartment, the Prince waited for me.
At his instruction, evidently, the maids had already drawn me a bath, and I stepped into it as he watched.
Did I do as you asked? Am I free? I asked.
You have won your freedom, he said. He was smiling a thin, thin smile.
He withdrew from his coat an envelope and set it on the bureau by the tub.
Thank you, I said, and stood to check through the contents—my citizenship, the record of the bank draft and the account’s number, the deed to the apartment.
My Serene Highness, a word? I had used his formal address to charm him, and he nodded, smiling.
I insist, he said. Speak freely.
The day will come when my life won’t be worth so much to you, I said. I know you imagine you can kill me at will. And it may be you can. But you should not.
Why not? he asked, amused. What could kill you? You are the deathless one; you have nothing to fear from a mortal like me.
I didn’t answer this question. I held my arms up to be scrubbed by the maids, and as I watched, even under the hot water, I could see myself turn only a faint pink.
Deathless or all death, who could say? he asked.
I shrugged—we both knew he could say.
Do you love him?
The Queen of the Night Page 40