Aurélie’s hands pressed flat against the gray stone wall, her eyes wide. “You don’t understand. There is one more dream with me in it. Jaska is in it, too. In some place I have never seen.”
I kept back a yip of joy. “That can’t be bad,” I said cautiously.
“But you are also in it. Standing next to me, in your body.”
THIRTY-THREE
SHE BROKE OFF AT THE SOUND of horse’s hooves and wheels rattling over cobblestones. She looked as scared as I felt. I was in my physical form, in her time? This cannot be good.
She fingered her pistol inside the waistcoat as a very fine carriage pulled up, a coat of arms painted on the door. Then I recognized the Dobreni golden twin falcons, each holding sprigs of green, one acanthus and the other amaranth, against a red background.
Aurélie pulled her fingers away from the grip of the pistol when the door opened and Jaska leaped out. “Come inside,” he invited. He was still in his travel clothes, his forehead taut with tension.
Aurélie settled onto the bench opposite him and looked around appreciatively. “This is a very fine coach. Where did you find it?”
“It belongs to the legation from my homeland. Dobrenica is a subject of the empire, and my friend Hippolyte is first secretary to the legate. I’ve taken the liberty of engaging you a hotel room, which we’ll go to directly. Feel free to give orders for laundry and to have your coat brushed. Or did you wish to become a female again?”
“I thought of that.” Aurélie set her satchel down, dug way to the bottom, and pulled out a tight roll of fabric, which unrolled to disclose one of her pretty little French gowns with the cap sleeves, edged with Grecian patterns.
In Paris this gown was the latest fashion, perfectly tasteful. But a single day’s look at people on the streets of Vienna made it plain that here, Paris fashions were out of place. Aurélie regarded the rumpled gown in dismay, then shoved it back into her satchel. “Perhaps I’d better go as I am.”
Jaska said, “Yes. There’s another aspect that we didn’t consider. As a young lady, you’d require a maidservant. Those are easy enough to find, but more difficult would be a suitable dame de compagnie.”
Aurélie sighed. “Les convenances. It’s so much easier to be a boy.”
“So my sister used to say, when we were small. She used to steal my clothes from time to time, and go out as me. Everyone was properly scandalized when at last she was caught, but I sometimes wondered, what’s the harm, really, when she did nothing but what every boy does when he has time on his hands? No one could give me sufficient answer except, Her reputation will be forever ruined.” He smiled.
Aurélie smiled back, and I waited impatiently for her to ask more about his family. Her lips parted. But then she gave her head a tiny shake and said, “’Twas the same in England. My cousins and I couldn’t understand it either.”
Jaska gestured toward the coach window. “I’ve a suggestion. Vienna is famed for her music, and Hippolyte told me that there is an oratorio being performed tonight by a newcomer named Beethoven. He and a Herr Wölffl are reputed to be the best pianists since Mozart, and he also writes music, they say. There’s a new theater out by the market.”
Her whole face brightened with anticipation, causing his to brighten as well.
He’d arranged for a room in a hotel not far from St. Stephen’s, whose bells echoed carillons down the stone canyons of the streets. The hotel seemed to cater to young, well-born secretaries to ambassadors and legates, and to local imperial officers, couriers, and gentry-class music students.
As servants carried up hot water to the copper tub set in an alcove off the room, she retreated to the window seat and looked down at the busy street below.
I poked her and asked, “Why didn’t you ask about his family?”
She blushed. “I thought it would be too forward.”
“He looked like he wanted to tell you.”
She pulled the mirror up and peered earnestly at me. “I thought so, too. And yet I’m afraid. If he answers such questions readily, will he not want to ask the same sorts of questions from me?”
A servant came into the room to inform ‘the young gentleman’ that the bath was ready and would he like anything else?
She dismissed him with thanks and retired to the bath. When she emerged, her damp hair fluffed and curled around her neat queue. She dressed in her second-best shirt and waistcoat and breeches. The servant had brushed her coat and borne the rest of her clothes off to a laundry. She looked very young as well as strikingly handsome.
She arrived downstairs to find Jaska waiting in a sober-colored coat, his hair neatly tied back, his cravat plain, no rings or fobs. It was impossible to guess his status, from his clothes—he could have been anything from a prosperous middle class student to a slumming prince.
Here was something new, though. The expression on his face as she appeared, was quick and unguarded. And tender.
But she didn’t have the experience to see what I saw. She blushed and wouldn’t look at him at all as he opened the door and led the way out.
When they reached the street, she absently smoothed her ruffled curls off her brow and said, “Where is Mord?”
“He left for a place called Eisenstadt, but he’ll return.” Jaska glanced down the street, then back. Then he electrified me by speaking quickly, as if he’d rehearsed his words: “I hoped you would consider riding with us to visit my homeland.”
Aurélie gave a start.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “I did not mean to poke you.”
Jaska continued, “…and I flatter myself by thinking you might like it in spite of its being small and provincial, as the French say. There is always music. It resembles Vienna in that way, though Riev is a very small capital of an equally small kingdom. But—” He switched to Latin. “They understand magic there, and they might be able to help your spirit to return to where she belongs. And Mord is going to rejoin me on the road,” he added, as if that offered additional incentive. “He has no home to go to, like you. Though Dobrenica has been subject to the empire for over a hundred years, our laws respecting the Jews are closer to the Polish enlightenment.”
If I’d been breathing, I would have held my breath.
But Aurélie didn’t hesitate. “Thank you. I would like to see your homeland.”
If I’d had a body I would have cried for joy, and grief, and worry, and…well, you get the idea. Okay, that’s the first hurdle. Now for his identity…and I hope by then I’ve figured out why and how I’m to save Dobrenica.
“You want me to go to his country?” Aurélie asked later.
I’d made so many mistakes that I’d resolved to start small. If she asked questions, I’d answer only that question. But no information offered beyond. “It has a reputation for its music. And magical studies,” I said.
She looked down at her hands for a long time, as if turning ideas over in her mind. Then she changed her coat and neck cloth and brushed her hair again, to prepare for the night’s concert.
From the first broody chords of the oratorio, Aurélie was enthralled. All the way back she and Jaska talked about musical theory, and both predicted a great future for Herr Beethoven with all the enthusiasm of a couple in our day who has just discovered a great new band.
Over the next few days, they attended as many musical events as Jaska could locate. He was scrupulously careful, treating her rather like James had, as if she were a fellow student, but betraying by little signs his awareness that she wasn’t, in spite of her boy’s wear. I don’t think she saw them, because she avoided his glance and kept a scrupulous distance, betraying her own growing interest only when his gaze was elsewhere.
Occasionally, Aurélie glimpsed the elusive Hippolyte (de) Vauban, a tall Frenchman with an eye-patch, so homely he was appealing. Or maybe it was his smile, his air of gallantry. He appeared and vanished like a stage magician, supplying the legation coach and tickets. He also looked at her with an interest that made me wonder if
Jaska had confided in his old army buddy.
I hoped to get a hint about Jaska’s identity from Hippolyte, but he was too circumspect. The only time Aurélie and Jaska got into personal stuff was when the bells tolled at midday on Good Friday, when everything was draped in black. “Do you not wish to attend Mass?” Aurélie asked. “Or are you still an apostate?”
Jaska looked around their café with an air of discomfort. “Mord once said that he was angry at God for the curse of free will. That we had to live in a world that contained Russians like Suvorov and Cossacks who could murder good people like his grandfather and his intended wife. I share that anger, yet a world without God somewhere makes no sense. That is, it implies no meaning when anyone can see there is an order to the stars and in the patterns of small things, to the patterns of colors in the shells of snails. Perhaps, though, I am merely unwilling to live in a world of no meaning.”
Aurélie gave a short nod of agreement.
“But I am not ready to confess and to mean it. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is one of the Ten Commandments, a mortal sin. I killed in the battle at Praga. I enjoyed it. The first death was a Russian who looked this tall when he came at me.” Jaska held his hand up high. “When he was dead at my feet, his face smoothed out, I saw he could not be any older than I was. After that…it was easier. If God is there and listens to us, then He knows what lies in my heart. Until I get home…” Jaska looked away bleakly. “I have a close relation in the Benedictines. We used to debate. He always had a knack for explaining things,” Jaska added, then said with a quick, sideways look, “Mord will only marry within his religion, if he marries at all.”
Aurélie spread her hands. “I pity his wife, if he does choose to marry. That is, I’d pity her for having to support his moods, though she would be a very, very lucky woman if he plays music for her.”
Jaska listened to that with muted surprise. She tipped her head. “He is a very romantical person. A little like a fire, I have come to see. Very bright, but you do not want to draw too near.”
“He is a very loyal friend,” Jaska said, his tone reflective, midway between relief and question.
“Very,” she agreed. “My cousin Diana is just such a one.”
On Easter Sunday, they were out in the streets with the Austrians when St. Stephen’s rang the Pummerin, the great bell—one of the largest in all of Europe. Its deep, voluminous sound reverberated through stone and wood and bone and muscle. That day, I noticed no winged beings around, though I could not tell you if there was a connection.
The next day Jaska appeared at Aurélie’s hotel with a pair of excellent horses, and they departed for Dobrenica.
Alec, I’m coming home, I thought.
THIRTY-FOUR
EISENSTADT WAS NOT THAT FAR from Vienna. Mord was waiting for them on the road that afternoon, looking like something out of a vengeance movie with a killer soundtrack—you know, like Reservoir Dogs—with his wild hair, scruffy chin, violin case in one hand, sword, pistol, and cavalry carbine in a holster at his back.
“There are more seraphs following you,” he said by way of greeting.
Aurélie slewed around on her horse (she was still a death-grip rider) and I saw…nothing.
Mord blinked. “They evaporated. But they were there.”
“Let’s go,” Jaska said, clucking his mount into a trot. “I would rather get to an inn before dark.”
We didn’t see any more of them as the days wore on, and we gradually moved into increasingly wild countryside.
I was not prepared for the cascade of memories and emotions when I heard the first clickety-clack of waterwheels, hidden in the soft fan-spreads of fern and wild tangles of ancient trees. Dobrenica is basically a large comma-shaped valley surrounded by mountains, whose streams and rivers trickle and splash into countless gorges and vales and hollows, some of which get only the occasional shaft of sunlight during the warm months of the year.
Jaska seemed to expand as we neared his homeland, or maybe the guises of soldier, student, diplomat, and aide de camp all coalesced. He didn’t turn gabby or bossy. I don’t think Mord would have put up with that—or Aurélie, either. It was more that he seemed to draw on a sense of alertness, even responsibility, which you’d expect when taking people to your home turf. Yet he still didn’t talk about his life there.
Then we reached the border.
What would be a rough few hours’ drive in my time was now a week of tortuous travel up a very narrow road that too frequently dwindled to the width of an animal path, due to fallen trees or rocks or landslides. Then the road would widen again as it caught up with hidden thoroughfares between concealed villages.
Jaska said one night, as an entire small inn turned out to welcome them, “I sent a message ahead with the legation courier. We should be met along the road here somewhere.”
The next morning, as they rode out under the still dripping conifers into a world scrubbed into bright spring colors by a midnight thunderstorm, they heard noise ahead that resolved into many horse hooves. The rumble of male voices was punctuated by the ring and clatter of heavy martial gear.
Mord rammed the book he had been reading into his saddle bag, snatched off his spectacles, then snapped the carbine out in two practiced moves. Jaska put his hand to his sword, and Aurélie whipped from the saddle sheath the pistol that she had not fired since they had reached Linz.
The first of the cavalcade arrived. Pistol and carbine leveled, sword loosened in scabbard.
Then Jaska let out a shout of laughter. “Piotr Andreyevich! I did not expect you so early.” Mord and Aurélie holstered their weapons.
The leader was a slim guy of about twenty-five, dressed in the eighteenth-century version of the Vigilzhi uniform; that is, the deep cuffed sleeves and full skirted coat of blue, the cross belt instead of a Sam Browne, a plumed shako instead of a helmet. The front of the shako had the same brass plaque of the Dobreni falcons as the one on the Vigilzhi helmet of modern times.
This particular shako was worn at a rakish angle on wild blond curls that framed a face with the sharp cheekbones and uptilted eyes that hinted at Mongol ancestry. He held up a gloved hand to slow the column following behind him, drew his horse alongside Jaska’s, then murmured in Dobreni, “She would have it her way.”
Jaska whispered in consternation, “You do not mean Irena?”
“Insisted. And as her brother is my commanding officer, and you did not specifically order to the contrary…”
Jaska became aware of Aurélie’s and Mord’s curious looks at either side, and his horse sidled, ears back. “René—Aurélie—Mordechai, this is Captain Piotr Andreyevich Danilov, of the King’s Guard,” he said in French, then quickly, in Dobreni, “How long do we have?”
“She hadn’t left the Golden Chestnut when we departed. We thought we ought to ride ahead as fast as we could.” He moved his horse aside as someone left the column and approached. This was a tall, sober-faced young woman with a hint of blond braids under the hood of her riding cloak, diamonds winking at her ears.
“Margit,” Jaska exclaimed with unmistakable relief. “I knew I could rely on you. Though I did not mean to put you to this trouble. A trunk would have sufficed.”
The hood was thrown back, disclosing a pretty bonnet above a face so much like Jaska’s it was instantly clear that not only was this young woman his sister, she was his twin.
She drew her horse alongside Jaska’s, laughing and crying both, then leaned out to grab his arm. They kissed, the horses sidled, ears awry (unlike their riders, they did not know one another) and Margit whirled her mount back into line with an expert turn of wrist and knee.
Then she swept a speculative gaze from Aurélie’s much battered hat to her mud splashed, worn soled, buckled shoes. With that steady, assessing gaze still on Aurélie’s masculine coat and her trousered legs, Margit said in Dobreni, “Irena is not far behind.”
“We will have to ride back to Mierz.”
“Did you leave suitable c
lothing in Mierz?” Margit asked, without removing her gaze from Aurélie.
“All we have is what we carry,” Jaska said.
“What is the problem?” Mord asked in German.
Aurélie’s wide gaze flicked from one to the other, as in the distance, the clopping of hooves heralded new arrivals. Not knowing what was going on, she nipped her pistol from the saddle sheath and held it ready as Margit muttered in Dobreni, “I always fight fair,” to her brother, and fumbled at the neck of her cloak. She gathered the fine yards of wool in her arms as she kneed her horse closer to Aurélie, who looked at her with a pucker of apprehension in her brow.
Margit snatched off Aurélie’s hat, and then, with a quick flick of her wrists, threw the cloak around Aurélie’s shoulders. “Pull it together. Pull the hood forward,” she ordered in German.
Aurélie stuffed the pistol in her waistband and pulled the cloak around herself. She tugged the hood over her head about five seconds before another cavalcade of Vigilzhi (or King’s Guard, as I guess they were called in 1803) appeared, with another woman in their center. This woman was short, wearing a masculine-looking riding habit that made the most of a very curvy figure and a ramrod-straight back. An enormous diamond glittered in the lace at her high collar, and I bet myself it was loaded with anti-vampire spells. Her black hair, drawn away from an extravagant widow’s peak, was pulled up into a dashing riding hat rather like a laced shako with wide scarlet ribbons pulled down to tie under her chin. Wide-set black eyes gazed from below straight brows, in a face pale as porcelain.
“Jaska.” Her voice was high and clear. “We could not wait a moment longer. Seven years!” Her clear tones tried, convicted, and sentenced Jaska to a lifetime of guilt. “Seven years.”
“Irena Sergeyevna,” Jaska said, without answering the prosecutorial query. The black-haired Irena forced her horse between Jaska’s and Aurélie’s, and he kissed the gloved hand she held out imperiously.
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