But my logic was not confirmed by actuality. I rode for many days, sometimes scarcely sleeping, from one town to another, from city to city, constantly enquiring after her, only to find I had missed her by hours. It was as if she, herself, were possessed by some peculiar will-o’-the-wisp supernatural quality. In my light-headed sleeplessness I would occasionally wonder if she was a kind of glamorous lure, a fly artfully manufactured to draw me further and further on into the middle of Europe. But for what reason? Why should anyone wish to trap me? Not Montsorbier, who still, I believed, pursued me (or if not Montsorbier then some of his agents – I learned to recognise the breed). Did she play a game for her mere amusement? That, too, I could not credit.
Reaching Vienna (and going incognito for obvious reasons), I again began my enquiries in that populous and confusing city. I had it on the best authority that the Duke of Crete was most certainly staying with his friend Eulenberg at an estate on the outskirts. But it was impossible for me to gain an invitation and I was informed, at the gates, that callers were not being received. Unwilling to give my true name, and thus embarrass Eulenberg who was a close friend of my uncle and a distant kinsman, I was doubly thwarted. For a time I kicked my heels in Vienna, hoping that either Eulenberg or the Duke, or both, would appear. They did not. The rumour was that they were engaged in some important scientific experiment. All my enquiries regarding the Duchess were equally fruitless. It was as if she had suddenly disappeared at the very gates of the city. I must conclude that she had not stopped in Vienna, but was by now several days’ ride ahead of me, perhaps already in Prague.
In a daze of speculation and uncertainty, I took horse for Prague. My nights grew increasingly disturbed. Now I was plagued by peculiar nightmares in which I dreamed of myself naked, armed only with a sword, seeking through a series of underground tunnels a huge and stinking beast, half man but enormously powerful, which lived only for my destruction. Sometimes, too, Libussa entered these dreams, smiling at me, mocking me perhaps. I could never be certain whether she loved me or merely used me for some terrible entertainment of her own devising. And sometimes she was not a woman at all, but a creature of fantasy. Sometimes she appeared in male attire, claiming to be her own brother. Thus my poor weary brain attempted to make logic from all the conflicting stories I heard while in pursuit of a woman I had met briefly only once.
I reasoned this obsession was folly. I sought a solution to a mystery which would prove to be no mystery at all. But I could not rid myself of its burden. I came to believe that, once I confronted Libussa, I should understand why I pursued her. She had become an aspect of my own identity.
Was Libussa, therefore, a simple reflection of my own urgent desire to love? When at last we met would the ghost which plagued me be exorcised? Perhaps I hunted her not because she represented my perfect mate, but because I wanted to see her face to face and learn that, after all, she bore no relation to the creature I had invented!
What was more I could not separate my thoughts of her from the notion of alchemy. Earlier I had rejected that rude blend of mysticality and scientific experiment in favour of a more modern and enlightened school of investigation, yet my attraction to alchemy’s romantic marvellousness remained somewhere within my breast. Might Libussa represent my past – a time when I had more readily embraced the irrational, the terrible and the miraculous?
In this miserably irrational state of mind I fled out of Vienna on the earliest diligence for Prague. There, I convinced myself, I should at last be able to seek her out and prove whether it was she I loved or whether I loved nothing but an invention of my own imagination. Yet with every mile I covered it seemed I lost a further fragment of my reason. From the way ordinary folk addressed me – warily, fearfully – I came to realise that my appearance now displayed my mind’s turmoil. I made an effort to improve my costume, to ensure I was as elegant as in former times. I attempted to control my excesses of emotion, educating myself to speak with quiet, measured politeness to all I met. Even this, however, frequently had the effect of terrifying people!
Libussa, of course, was not my only source of distress; I was still unrecovered from the great blows sustained by my soul at the corruption of my noblest dreams.
To have swallowed my pride and gone straight home to Bek would probably have cured me. As it was, I had achieved no respite since the beginning of the Terror.
By the time Prague’s spires and battlements came in sight my mind had settled a little better and I assured myself that should I miss Libussa there, I would rest for a while before making a leisurely journey to Mirenburg. Since that city had been my original goal and since she would certainly be resident there when I arrived, I would quell my anxieties and replenish both mind and body in the certainty that we must soon come together again.
In Prague – a close rival to Mirenburg in her beauty and complexity – I made my way directly to the house of Baron Karsovin, my kinsman and a friend from happier times. The house was a good, well-ordered solid place in the baroque style and was situated close to the St Cyrillus Park. Anticipating a pleasant meeting, I rode with improved spirits through the streets. It was a fine day. The sunshine was bright on the sparkling roofs, upon the dancing waters of the river, on turrets and bridges. Prague is an ancient seat of learning, combining a sleepy, peaceful atmosphere with an excellent history of moral and intellectual investigation. Dressed in fresh-cut black and white (after the new English pattern – I’d had it done in Vienna) I crossed the park and entered my friend’s gates, knocking at last upon his magnificent door. I deemed it safe enough to give my correct name and within moments Karsovin himself came down to greet me.
I was mightily relieved to see him. That amiable dissolute grinned broadly when he clasped my hand and asked immediately after a half-dozen Parisian courtesans, one or two of whom I knew and all of whom had not been one whit affected by the progress of the Revolution. Karsovin was showing his age somewhat more gracefully than at other times (he was my senior by almost two decades). His wig was unostentatious, his paint restrained and his clothing, while yet elegant, relied upon lace rather than on padding, sitting more loosely and more becomingly on his figure.
Karsovin had assumed the air of a respectable diplomat. His voice was quieter than formerly and his manner almost modest. In sober dark green, with only his coat displaying any attention to the mode, he escorted me through polished halls to a small dining room where he intended to break his fast. I asked him if there had been a letter delivered there for me. There had been none, he said. I enquired after my mother and my father. They were both, said Karsovin, in Bek health (a term then in common employment). Karsovin asked after my elder brother (with whom he had fought a thoughtless duel when Ulrich decided some harlot was insulted – neither in the end firing anywhere but at the ground) and I said Ulrich seemed reasonably unsickly, given the circumstances. He would doubtless go soon to the mountains for a rest at Lobkowitz’s estate. Karsovin’s heavy, tawny features once seemed to bear the lines of dissipation, but now they merely told of statesmanly cares. I asked if he continued to sport in Prague, since the city’s women were what first brought him there.
He offered me the small, unenthusiastic smile of a reformed rake. He planned to marry, he said. A young Moravian princess. And with that in mind – her fortune was a comfortable one – he had put Scandal at his back, though he still went twice a year to Mirenburg, whose Corinthian cloisters were deservedly famous. ‘I have spent almost my whole inheritance and must now pay the price, old friend, if I’m to gain another and ensure myself of an heir or two beside. What’s more, I’m demmed weary of the doings of women, whether they be bob-tail bold or the honest article, and I’ve had too much of ’em en masse, so it’s my humour to try to get to know one well! A matter of curiosity, I suppose, which will maintain my interest when passion wanes and babies begin a-shrieking!’
At his suggestion we drank a toast to the whores and fine ladies we had known (though I had to feign enthusiasm), th
en another to his new-caught Slav, Princess Ulrica-Irmentrude of Buchweiss. A miniature was taken from its cabinet. Then I must admire her handsome, though somewhat stolid, physiognomy, her auburn hair – he produced a locket of the stuff – her learning (a poem was waved in the air but not read). Since Karsovin seemed almost serious I praised these treasures conscientiously and enquired upon the marriage date, which he said would be before Christmas of ’94. There were contracts in preparation. But it was my own news he most craved, particularly of France, and I duly told him that all the horrid tales were true.
‘But it must end soon,’ said Karsovin, ‘or France herself will perish.’
I allowed my disdain to be seen upon my face. ‘Her army’s healthy enough. It could be the best in the world.’
Karsovin showed stern interest. ‘Not better than Austria’s.’
‘Yes,’ I insisted, ‘and perhaps Prussia’s, too.’
‘All the old soothsayers and oracles in the market place say there’s a great change coming to the world,’ said Karsovin thoughtfully. ‘But I can’t believe that France will be the cause. Unless she intends to do it by the pox!’ He was back to laughing good spirits again. ‘Let them try their luck against our Uhlans.’ He spoke with a confident air. He winked and rang the bell as we sat down to table. ‘My little Slav tells me that if I’m marrying for wealth, she’s marrying me for my cook, Frau Schtick.’
The cuisine was excellent and the wine remarkable, considering its relative youth. We talked of old days and the future, of our current politics and religion and the like. He had already heard of my flight and presumed disaffection and wanted a conference on issues which I would rather have avoided. To him, a supporter of Enlightenment, but no democrat, these were of consuming interest. At last I was forced to reveal my wishes and, gentlemanly as ever, even at the height of his wildness, he moved to what for me were less explored territories. He spoke of the coming conference of alchemists, wondering, as La Harpe had done, what moved people to take up such ideas.
My own guess was that they retreated into ancient philosophies out of fear of the new ones. ‘So the Rosicrucians, for instance, are dedicated not to discovery at all, but to preserving what is familiar and which therefore offers them no threat. Romance goes hand in glove with the effects of Reason’s triumphs. We move towards an age of revolution, of steam-engines, flying ships, spinning jennys and underwater boats. They fear the manufactories, the steel-mills, the rail-roads, the canals. They are baffled, yet they retain a human need for balance and symmetry. They find it only by embracing the Abstract. So in England they build Gothick ruins and erect iron bridges with the aim of racing along their highways at enormous speeds upon the backs of clockwork horses!’
‘You alarm me, my friend,’ said Karsovin with a wink. ‘But I bow to your superior knowledge. Perhaps I should have spent more time studying steam-boilers and less in pursuit of chick-a-biddy buntlings. Perhaps, in old age, when my estate at Buchweiss is established, I’ll become an eccentric inventor and build a flying machine with which to explore the world.’ He became more animated. ‘By the by, I saw the great Montgolfier device go over the town last week. Before your arrival, of course.’
‘A balloon?’
‘With a basket of men dangling beneath. The basket was shaped like a cockatrice or perhaps a dragon. All gold and scarlet. It shocked me I must admit. Should men fly, d’ye think, von Bek? Or seek to whirl along the ground at excessive speeds?’
‘It’s never “should” with engineers, my old friend, but “how”? Have you not learned that much?’
He leaned back from the table as a footman cleared his plate away. Again he suppressed amusement. ‘Oh, just so! What a provincial I must seem. Yet I don’t greatly care. My interest in the Millennium dwindles almost daily and is replaced by the comforting notion that the only thing of real value is land. By the simple expedient of putting an old, familiar friend into a damp little hole for an hour or so each night, I’ll soon be assured, as any man can be in these days, of a great many hectares of security and capital. And how have I earned this for myself? By leading a Christian life? By risking my all for a Revolution? Not a bit of it. I’ve done it by virtue of my carnal appetites, by virtue of my vanity and self-love!’
I was smiling, though his coarseness gave me a certain amount of offence. Curiously, I asked: ‘Did ye perhaps hear the name of the aeronaut who flew by the other day?’
‘If I did, it escaped me.’ He was apologetic. ‘I assumed him to be one of the alchemists congregating here.’
‘Too modish a means of transport for one of that ilk,’ said I. ‘They prefer more supernatural forms of travel.’
He enjoyed my joke. ‘I had forgotten what a pleasure your company is. I trust you’ll stay with me while you’re in Prague.
I accepted his invitation. Next I asked after the Duchess of Crete. I was casual enough, but he readily understood my interest. He shook his head. ‘Again I must disappoint you. The young Duke of Crete, you know – Mendoza-Chilperic as he’s called here – is still in Vienna, by all accounts. He will be in Prague within the week, I gather.’
‘And you’ve not heard of a Duchess?’
‘I know only that the Duke’s said to favour the occasional jaunt to Town in female attire. But that’s trivial gossip and without any truth to my knowledge.’
‘You would know if there were.’
‘I think so, aye. As for a Duchess – I suspect you’ve met with an impersonator, my friend. Some strumpet posing as a blue-blooded lady – with a title at once familiar enough and obscure enough to deceive almost anyone.’
‘I am beginning to believe that’s the truth,’ I agreed. ‘Yet she was a creature of astonishing beauty.’
‘She has captured your heart, eh?’
‘Worse,’ said I, ‘she appears to have captured my mind. I cannot rid myself of her.’
‘Well, seek her under some other name, that’s my advice. She’ll not have the temerity to call herself Crete in Crete’s own adopted city.’
Glumly I also accepted this verdict. ‘I have reason to believe, however, that she’ll make for Mirenburg.’
‘A female rogue, eh? A swindler of some description? I appreciate the fascination you must feel. There’s something about such women – an independence of spirit, perhaps – that’s fatal to men like ourselves. Take further advice – find yourself a good placid creature like my Slav.’
I pretended to consider his suggestion, but I was more intrigued than ever. My darling was an imposter! Now her tendency to appear and disappear so swiftly was explained. It was not surprising I had been unable to find her in all the cities I had searched.
‘By the by,’ said Karsovin, ‘I’m reminded that your name came up only a day or so past, when I visited Holzhammer in the country. For the shooting.’
‘I’m unacquainted with Holzhammer. Is he not one of the Prince’s ministers in Mirenburg?’
‘That’s his nephew. This one hasn’t the brains to point his own gun, but must have a servant position it for him! An amiable fellow, however. He had just returned from Vienna. He knew that you were an old friend. I gather some Frenchy was at Court, seeking to obtain a special warrant for your arrest as a Jacobin spy.’
‘A Frenchman?’
‘A viscount, as I recall.’
‘Robert de Montsorbier?’
‘Aha! The same!’
‘He serves the Committee of Public Safety. He’s Robespierre’s man.’
‘No, no. Holzhammer said he was a true royalist.’
‘Then he’s posing as such to capture me. Be warned against him, Karsovin. Thousands have been murdered because of Montsorbier’s zealotry.’
‘I’ll tell Holzhammer, at least. And he can send a message to the Court. However, the Emperor, when last heard, was giving serious consideration to that warrant. So be careful, I beg you. It could be that you’re already a wanted spy here.’
‘Then I suppose I should make haste to Mirenburg, so as no
t to embarrass you, old friend.’
‘Pshaw to that!’
I smiled and put my hand on Karsovin’s shoulder. ‘Neither would I wish to spoil your marriage opportunity!’
He uttered a noisy laugh. ‘As for that, I’m in two minds. Could be you’d be saving me from my own folly!’
Nonetheless I determined to leave for Mirenburg the next morning. I had no liking to hurt Karsovin and even less care to find myself a prisoner in the old fort, awaiting trial for my life.
The weather was unusually mild when I left Prague. The road to Mirenburg was a good one, winding through the shallow valleys of the Carpathians, well policed by regular detachments of soldiery and with several excellent inns along the route. It was to be the easiest part of my journey before I arrived, at long last, in that most lovely of all the habitations of Man, the ancient city of Mirenburg.
Mirenburg lies on both sides of the winding River Rätt. Approaching from the north-east one descends a range of low hills from where the whole city can be observed, a silvery map upon the floor of the wide valley. Her walls are of white granite flecked with tiny deposits of iron and quartz so that in almost any light at all she glitters. In the early morning, under a clear blue Winter sky, with a haze rising from the river, it was as if I rode towards a vision of Heaven.
For all her steeples, her baroque towers and romanesque cupolas, her noble Gothick churches and antique meeting halls, the fanciful mansions of her great families, the gingerbread gables and asymmetrical half-timbers, moulded into natural contours by the passage of time and the weather, Mirenburg contained much that was pleasing to the human spirit’s more prosaic requirements. She had little crowded streets of houses with high-peaked eaves and long chimneys, undulating roofs of grey tile, whitewashed lanes of old black beams and bottleglass panes, their top-heavy upper storeys leaning out almost to form archways sheltering the brown cobbles below. At the centre of all this, on a kind of mound near the Rätt’s left bank, was the astonishing perpendicular flamboyance of her castle, residence of a Prince whose dynasty was old before the Hapsburg’s began. The Krasnaya were chiefs of the Svitavian Slavs who drove out the original occupants of the valley long before Rome ever marched westward and who held the valley long after Rome had gone.
The City in the Autumn Stars Page 10