Luz nodded; objectively he was perfectly correct. When human beings fought to kill, there weren’t many good ways to go. She’d seen a man take a bullet just behind the eyes once, and have them both pop out of the shattered sockets and hang there while he ran screaming Mama! Mama! and bouncing off walls and doors until someone on his own side gave him a mercy shot in the back of the head . . .
. . . but it didn’t feel very true. And if they were planning on using it as she suspected . . .
Horst’s eyes went to Ciara Whelan. “That was kindly done,” he said.
Luz shrugged. “She’s young and very naïve,” she said. “She’ll learn to deal with it. We do, ja? And then we go on. I’d better stay with her. I can’t attend your conference, after all.”
“Ja, it was decided that only military personnel should be present.”
She dropped into English for the American saying: “No girls in the tree-house.”
Horst nodded, missing the point. “I’ll get you transport . . . and tell you about the conference later. It’ll be just like being there, but without the boredom.”
EIGHT
Schloss Rauenstein
Kingdom of Saxony, German Reich
SEPTEMBER 8TH, 1916(B)
Even with the presence of the two great warlords and their entourage, Castle Rauenstein had some empty space within the rambling pile built and rebuilt and burned and built again over the last eight centuries in a dozen different styles. Ciara led her to the new wing after they’d been dropped in the courtyard, which had probably been a generation old when Mozart was born.
“They’ve put us in together,” she said, still looking a little shaky, as they climbed the stairs past what had been the main public rooms to bedchambers and suites. “We’re lucky at that, most of the men are six to a room.”
We’re both working hard at not thinking too much about the details of what we saw, and each helps the other with that just by being here. The last thing I want now is solitude.
The bedroom was large, and had probably been uncluttered in the Biedermeier style of three generations ago before the von Herders turned their country estate over to the government; there was a faded but excellent Shiraz rug on the floor, catching early-afternoon rays from the two square-paned windows. Now, besides a large four-poster bed, it held a great piano shining in burnished ebony, one small battered trunk that was probably Ciara’s, the two large yellow Vuitton ones that belonged to Luz, and more miscellaneous items shoved in here to get them out of the way. She thought the small pile of English-language volumes and magazines beside the bed were Ciara Whelan’s own; the books had titles like Principles of Wireless Telegraphy by someone named Pierce, and the magazines were similar.
Not my idea of light travel reading, but there’s no accounting for tastes.
“I hope you don’t mind sharing?” Ciara said, being polite, and possibly a little wary of the glamorous, deadly stranger.
She didn’t sound as if she expected Luz to be upset. In a family of her background it would be rare for daughters to have their own individual bedrooms, or beds for that matter, and unmarried guests would share sleeping quarters with their own gender and age. Luz had been the sole child of affluent parents, starting out upper-middle-class and moving on to borderline-wealthy before they died. But she’d spent enough time as a guest at her father’s clients’ houses, at finishing schools—European ones often had startlingly primitive ideas of what was appropriate accommodation for young ladies—and in college digs not to be picky.
Not to mention time with the Chamber since, when sometimes privacy meant the men looked the other way while I squatted.
The thought made her take a quick look, first at the water jugs and basins and towel sets on a bureau, and then under the bed after she stowed her suitcase and hatbox; yes, it was back to a chamberpot, and baths might mean a towel, a tin tub, and having buckets carried in. She sighed a little, but that wasn’t any novelty either; not all that many places were as modern as the house her engineer father had built in Santa Barbara.
At least it’s a clean pot and has a good tight-fitting lid. In fact, apart from a little dust and . . . that old smell you rarely get outside Europe . . . the room’s very well kept.
“There’s a lavatory one floor up,” Ciara said helpfully. “But it’s usually full of men and I don’t fancy waiting in line with them. There’s an orderly who comes by twice a day for the pot, and you can reserve the bathtub for an hour if you ask a day ahead . . . I will say for these Germans, they’re clean. Much more so than I’d expect for men together on their own, which usually is like bears with furniture or pigs in the parlor, not human beings at all.”
“It must be a bit difficult, being the only woman here.”
“Most of them have just ignored me, and the rest mostly act decent.” She flushed. “Colonel Nicolai, though . . . he’s a masher and a cad!”
Luz raised her brows sympathetically; that was a revoltingly common problem, always getting in the way of things when you least expected it. People said you had to expect it, but she’d never met anyone who could give her a convincing explanation of precisely why. Except they’re like that, which was a circular argument if she’d ever heard one, and she’d never found just because very logical.
“You had . . . problems with him? He tried to give you insult?” she said, which was a phrasing any woman would understand.
Ciara smiled; it was brief, but she was getting a little color back. Her teeth were white and slightly uneven, a generous smile in a large full-lipped mouth.
“Not anymore . . . well, not that problem. I gave him a good slap with my shoulder behind it when he couldn’t understand plain-spoken language in English or German, which hurt my hand some and his face more. Then I showed him the business end of a pin when he gave signs of thinking that was just a love-tap.”
She touched one of the amber-headed pins through her hat and piled hair; they were nearly a foot long and would be like an unrebated fencing foil in the right hands, or at least an Italian stiletto. From the momentary look of steely determination in the turquoise eyes, Ciara had probably been absolutely ready to use it. That was another sign of courage, and Luz felt a glow of approval.
I’m quite taken with this girl, and not just because she saved my life. Though possibly she didn’t understand exactly how brave it was here and now.
Germany wasn’t the sort of place where powerful men could just carry young women off or openly have their way by force, save perhaps on some Junker estate far from the cities where the local police were the lord’s creatures and he was the magistrate himself. That sort of thing would be more likely in Hungary, and common as the rain in Rumania or Andalusia or Sicily. But nobody in wartime would have said much if a nameless foreigner disappeared.
Though I don’t think Nicolai would actually endanger a mission out of pique at getting put in his place by a woman. He’s far too much of a cold fish. If Ciara wasn’t useful to him, though . . .
Luz felt a little surprised at how strong the flush of answering anger was and decided that the ghastly demonstration had thrown her emotions off-balance.
“And just what he deserved,” she said firmly. “No woman’s a piece of meat to be snapped at by hungry dogs.”
In an ideal world you wouldn’t have to do things like that. But then, in an ideal world people wouldn’t be plotting to massacre each other with nerve gases, either. You make the best of what you have.
“Yes, but try and convince a lot of men of that!” Ciara scowled and glanced aside. “That was probably why he made me . . . see that thing today. To punish me.”
Luz nodded. “Undoubtedly. But I wouldn’t think you’ve much else to fear from him. He needs you for this . . . thing, and my judgment is that he’ll put everything aside for that.”
That is a very strong hint that you must not balk openly at cooperating with this mis
sion, or he will kill you or worse.
“You think so?” Ciara asked, flashing her a grateful look.
“I’m fairly sure of it. Mind you, I’d avoid him afterward, were I you,” she finished. “By a continent or an ocean.”
“Thank you!” Hesitantly. “And thank you for . . . for comforting me.”
Luz waved a hand. “We’re in this together.”
She’s lonely, far away from home and friends and kin for the first time in her life, absolutely isolated among enemies and desperate for help. She wants to like me and trust me. And if I say so myself, I’m fairly good at getting people to do both . . . whether they should, from their own points of view, or not. Fortunately for Ciara Whelan, trusting me is just about her only hope of getting out of this alive. And I hope she does; she’s made the right decisions and she’s . . . rather charming herself, in a naïve sort of way.
Luz looked around the room again, this time with security in mind. The clutter and the upheaval made it impossible to tell if there were any listening devices; it wasn’t probable that someone had gone to the trouble of installing the bulky and expensive gear that was gradually revolutionizing clandestine surveillance . . . but it was entirely possible.
“Do you feel like a rest?” she said. “I wouldn’t blame you a bit.”
Ciara shuddered. “I’d not like to lie quiet just now, and sleep still less,” she said. “Climb the walls and shriek like the Woman of the Barrows, perhaps.”
Well, that’s understandable. Distraction, then; I could use some myself.
She was keeping the precise details of what they’d seen out of her mind with a practiced effort of will, but it wasn’t easy. She moved to the piano and sat, testing a few keys, surprised to find that it was in tune. There was a tall mahogany rack of sheet music beside it; a quick glance showed all the usual favorites, including a lot of arrangements for piano solos, or piano and violin.
It wouldn’t do for us to rush out, though. If there are listeners, that would arouse suspicion.
“Do you play, Miss Whelan?” she said, which was a soothingly conventional thing to ask.
“I do that. I love music, though my voice is middling at best, but the good sisters taught us piano, and my aunt Colleen has a rare talent for it and tutored me more. Ours was an upright, of course, a Steinway, not a great concert grand like this!”
There was pride behind that, as well as gratitude at talking of anything else but the horror they’d seen. One of the first signs of middle-class status was a parlor and a piano to put in it, a luxury families would scrimp and save and do without to achieve. Not that it didn’t bring a breath of culture into settings otherwise bare of it, which could be well worth making the winter coat last another year.
“Someday people will have all the music they want, the best performances from the great orchestras in recorded form,” Luz said, caressing the satiny wood.
“True! But there are problems to be solved first, which won’t be until they use electrical recording and not just acoustic. In the meantime even a good Victrola sounds like the music was filtered through a tin bucket.”
“This doesn’t,” Luz said, touching a key and letting the sound reverberate through the room.
“Sure and it’s a very good piano, the best I’ve ever set fingers to,” Ciara said. “Though it took getting used to. Ninety-seven keys! And in tune, for a wonder, rather than knocked about by the soldiers, though I think the man they had in here before me may have worked it up. He left some music in his own hand. Couldn’t make head nor tail of it, though—no melody at all, all these clashing chords.”
“Modern music, and I can’t say I like it. This is a Bösendorfer Imperial 290,” Luz said, stretching her hands to supple them. “Viennese, and you won’t get any better instruments in Europe, though the French would dispute that. I’ve never liked the metallic tone they prefer, myself. I’ve played on Bösendorfers before, though not this model, and always wanted one, but they cost the Earth, and you can’t carry a piano around with you. They started making these back around the turn of the century, because Ferruccio Busoni wanted it for his transcription of Bach’s Chaconne. The von Herders must love music; you don’t often see these in a private home.”
“Maybe they should have taken it with them. Though this is a private home in the same sense and way as saying the King of England’s family lives above the shop!”
Luz laughed. “It weighs five-eighths of a ton, too!” she said, which got an answering chuckle. “And you’d have to disassemble it to get it out of the building.”
She let her fingers drift into a piano solo arrangement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the bright carefree sound like gleaming strings of gold and silver through the still air of the room. Perhaps not appropriate on this grisly day . . . or perhaps perfect, for reminding you that there were things in the life of humanity other than war and the breaking of nations.
After a minute she let the tune drift off, and Ciara sighed. “You play very well, Miss Carmody; I always loved Mozart, but I’ve only heard that piece performed once by a full orchestra.”
“That’s a pity. Though personally I think a chamber group is just as good; it’s what he usually wrote for. I’m actually better with stringed instruments.”
“There’s a fiddle here . . .”
She rummaged and pulled out a violin case from behind a stack of crated books. “But I’ve never gone beyond the beginnings with these.”
Luz took the case and opened it, then blinked. “¡Ay, qué bonita!” she said. “Now, leaving this here goes beyond carelessness; either the von Herders are criminally negligent or their servants are. This would disappear eventually if it hadn’t been out of sight, military discipline or no! I’d be tempted to steal it myself, if the circumstances were right; it’s a lot easier to walk off with than the piano.”
Ciara chuckled—though Luz had been perfectly serious about taking it—and said: “It’s an ancient and venerable violin, then?”
“Not all that old—just over fifty years, twice my age—but Viennese too, and very good quality. See?”
She held the case so that the light revealed the label inside: Gabriel Lemböck Anno 1862.
Reverently she lifted the instrument free, turning it to enjoy the lustrous sheen of the oil varnish and subtle craqueleur on the distinctive one-piece back.
“I’ve never touched one of these before, but I’ve heard them.”
She took out the bow, checked it and the condition of the strings.
“Pitch?” she said, putting it under her chin and looking at Ciara.
The other woman leaned over and tapped the D and F just below A on the piano, then the C just above, to give a starting pitch for the A string on the instrument. After a minute Luz had the violin ready and tested it with an arpeggio. The tone was dark and velvety but with a light and easy response; it filled the room effortlessly, projecting without harshness, pure and buttery at once.
“Oh, that is pretty!” Ciara said, her strained face lighting up. “It makes most of the ones you hear sound like a cat in a hurdy-gurdy.”
Luz nodded. “I’m tempted now to steal it just to see that it gets proper treatment . . . except that I couldn’t guarantee it. I doubt I could get the Germans to let me mail it home!”
She stood and ran through a tune her father had liked, an old Irish planxty called “The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy-O” that had meant something special to him and her mima; one of her first memories was of him singing it to her, while Luz rested in her arms.
After a moment Ciara sat and began to echo it on the piano, singing the words in a voice that was a little thin but true:
“What care I for house and land?
What care I for daddy’s money-o?
I’d rather have a kiss from my gypsy lover’s lips
I’m away wi’ the raggle-taggle gypsy-o!”
L
uz stopped with a laugh at the trailing last note. “Do you want to try that Mozart piece, but for piano and violin, Miss Whelan? I think there’s sheets for it there in the rack by your elbow.”
It does help when you have interests in common.
“I’d love to; I’ve heard it done that way.”
They set up the music—Luz put hers flat on the top of the piano—and Ciara began, not sophisticated playing, but adept and full of spirit, the sort of style someone developed if they’d played a good deal alone, for their own pleasure and probably hearing an ideal instrument in their mind.
After a moment Luz closed her eyes and let out a deep breath to expel everything else from her consciousness and began. Mozart had been a repellent human being, by all accounts, but his work had been touched with the finger of something from beyond the world of common day, and deserved all respect. It was the art that mattered, not the artist. They followed each other through the long quick dance; when she looked up again the last notes of the coda were dying away.
Luz gave a long sigh, her eyes half-closed with pleasure. It had been a good while since she’d been able to give herself to the music so completely, or enjoyed playing with someone so on first acquaintance.
“Oh,” Ciara said. “That was lovely! Thank you, Miss—”
Her face changed slightly as she realized she didn’t know the real name, and Carmody was someone else’s. Someone else who’d probably come to a bad end, at that. Luz shrugged and smiled wryly.
Not quite singing in harmony yet, she thought. But give us time.
“Please call me Luz,” she said. “You can say it’s a childhood nickname. Pardon me if I’m presuming on brief acquaintance, but . . .”
It was a little quick for first names, even for two young women in these informal days, but the time since their meeting had been rather intense. And they were the only Americans here, though Ciara wouldn’t be certain of that yet.
Black Chamber Page 17