The Left-Handed God (19 page)

According to Elsbeth, both mother and brother had turned against Augusta, who had run to her room, “crying her eyes out.” After expressing his outrage that they should reject their own flesh and blood, it struck Max that Augusta’s misery might well push her into his own eager arms.

Thus, he felt a proprietary love when he finally laid eyes on her. He could tell she had not slept. Her beautiful blue eyes were dull, she had dark rings under them, and her eyelids were red and puffy from weeping. And yet in her misery, his angel had pity for his black eye and cut cheek and forgave him for the drunken brawl he offered as an explanation. He decided to press his luck by buying her that bouquet of flowers in the market.

When he returned with an enormous armful of zinnias‌—‌after long deliberation, he had decided the mix of strong red and orange, pink and purple, white and yellow was certain to cheer up even a dying man‌—‌he found Master Franz had come home in the middle of the day and was closeted with his mother in the parlor.

Elsbeth, the source of this news, was confounded by the flowers. “Mary and Joseph! What’s this? Did the mistress send you for them?”

“No. I got them for Miss Augusta. To cheer her.” He handed them over. “Here, put them in some water, will you?”

Elsbeth’s eyes flashed. She dumped the flowers on the table. “Do it yourself. And just for that I won’t tell you why the young master’s home.”

“Well, here,” said Max, plucking a few flowers from the bunch and handing them to her, “the white ones were meant for you cause you’re as sweet as…‌sugar.”

She blushed and pressed her nose into the blooms. “Aw, the things you say.”

Max found a large earthenware pitcher, filled it with water from a bucket and shoved Augusta’s zinnias into it. “So what’s this about the master?”

Elsbeth hugged her flowers. “Only that he’s going away. Early in the morning. To Mannheim, with that lawyer he works for.”

Max froze. “What?”

Elsbeth made eyes at him. “You really like me, Max? You’re not just saying that?”

Max frowned. “I like you. Go on.”

“I like you, too, but you like Miss Augusta better.” She pouted.

Max, intent on information, seized Elsbeth around the waist and laid a wet and crushing kiss on her lips. “There! That’s how much I like you.” When he released her, she was breathless and rosy-cheeked. Max considered that such sacrifices were a small price to pay. In fact, Elsbeth might well turn out a windfall for an enterprising lad embarked on a difficult quest. He smiled at her.

She smiled back. “Would you walk to church with me next Sunday?”

“Don’t push me, girl,” Max growled. “I don’t hold with church and such. Get on with your story.”

She was disappointed, but he got his report. “I was listening at the door, thinking it was more talk about Miss Augusta and her beau, but it wasn’t. He said how he had to go right away, and not to go talking about it.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a secret. And you should’ve heard the mistress. She wanted to go with him. She said it was just the thing to take Miss Augusta away right now. But he wouldn’t have none of it. Got real fierce with her, he did.”

Elsbeth was clearly fascinated with the dynamics of the von Langsdorffs’ family relations, but Max was not interested. “So what? A man’s got to be firm with womenfolk.”

Elsbeth gave him a soulful look. “I like a man to be masterful. Anyway, the mistress said it would be on his head if his sister ends up a spinster or worse. And then she was sniffling ‘cause he had no pity on her, what with the evil things her friends was saying. And how she was mortificated . How her consternation couldn’t take no more. How could she lay eyes on the faithless man after what he done to her? She meant Herr Seutter, I think.”

Max nodded impatiently. “Never mind the old biddy. Why’s he goin’ to Mannheim? Did he say?”

“He’s takin’ a letter. He did say he was comin’ right back. But there’s the post for sendin’ letters.”

Max stared at her. He suddenly saw a way out of his predicament. If he let his employer know about the impending arrival of Franz with the elusive letter, he was rid of all his problems and might earn himself some good will besides. But he must be quick about it.

*

Augusta slipped into the house silently to avoid her mother, but the moment she closed the front door behind her, she heard the voices in the parlor. It was midday, and Franz and her mother were arguing behind the closed parlor door.

She thought her mother had discovered her absence and sent for her brother. For a moment she was afraid, but then she remembered Jakob and straightened her shoulders. Heart beating and hand touching the ring inside her bodice, she opened the parlor door and walked in.

They looked up from their heated exchange. Her mother instantly glared, but Franz merely said, “Ah, there you are, Augusta. Good. I shall need clean shirts and stockings for my trip. Will you see to it? Mama is upset.”

She gaped at him. “Where are you going?”

“Doctor Stiebel and I will take coach for Mannheim tomorrow. I shall be gone five or six days at the most. Four shirts, my good ones. And brush and press my uniform. Elsbeth cannot be trusted.”

The old Augusta would have asked many questions, but she was now a grown woman with a life of her own and was willing to let her family go about their business without confiding in her. She nodded and left the room.

Let him go on his trips. It would mean one less person to berate her. She could manage to avoid her mother as much as possible in the few weeks until her birthday, and Jakob had promised that he would have their banns called the Sunday after.

She went upstairs and changed into a house dress and kitchen apron. Then she collected the uniform from Franz’s wardrobe and counted out his shirts, cravats, and stockings. There were enough clean ones, except for one pair of stockings, and these Elsbeth could wash and hang out to dry. The uniform, shirts and cravats she took down to the kitchen.

It was empty, but on the table stood a pitcher with an enormous bunch of colorful zinnias. Zinnias flowered in village gardens and were not at all her mother’s sort of flower. She wondered where they had come from. She moved them to the sideboard and put the iron on its stand into the hot coals. Then she stirred up a small bowl of potato starch for the shirts and cravats. The uniform had been cleaned and mended after Franz’s return and only needed brushing and smoothing out.

Surely Franz was not returning to military duty. What could he and Stiebel want in Mannheim? But this was no longer her business. She was betrothed. And come to think of it, once she was Frau Seutter, she would no longer have to clean and press, though she would be happy enough to do so for her husband. She smiled to herself. How good it would be to have him always near her.

She was almost done‌—‌a clean uniform and four starched shirts lay neatly folded on a chair while she pressed the cravats on the kitchen table‌—‌when Max walked in. The autumn sun slanted through the kitchen window and made a halo of his blond curls: the archangel Michael come to earth.

He stopped and looked at her with a smile that was almost tender. His teeth were very white and his eyes crinkled at the corners. Even with the bruised eye, he was beautiful. “Are you ready for your food, Max?” she asked a little breathlessly. “I’m almost done here.”

“Did you like the flowers?”

“The zinnias? They’re beautiful. Such colors. Where did they come from?”

“The market. I knew you’d like the colors.”

Augusta blushed. “You bought them? Oh, Max, there was no need.”

“Every need, miss. I couldn’t help seein’ you were cast down.”

Augusta did not know where to look. “It was very kind, but you really mustn’t do such things.”

“It gives me pleasure,” said Max and sat down across from her to watch her work. He made her so nervous that she hurried, creasing the last cravat.

“It gives me more pleasure to look on you,” he said softly. “A man would be the luckiest man alive to come home to such a wife.”

Shocked, she looked at Max just as a cloud passed over the sun and extinguished his halo. The black eye looked sinister and his smile predatory. She was suddenly afraid and wished for Jakob. Taking her hand from the iron, she touched the ring inside her bodice and saw that his eyes followed it. She shivered with a mixture of fear and pleasure, and then felt foolish. He was only Max, even if he looked at her in a way that was…‌not really predatory perhaps, but intent. She thought of their embrace under the pear tree and grew warm.

When she snatched the hot iron from the cravat, it had burned the corner.

Turning away, she quickly put the iron back on its stand and folded the cravat with unsteady fingers.

“Could I ask a big favor, miss?”

“A favor?” She gathered Franz’s clothes, holding them protectively against herself, ready to escape upstairs.

“A letter, miss. To my old auntie. I’ve never been to school, and I’d be so very grateful if you could write it for me.”

Ah, so that was why he had bought the flowers. She said warmly, “But of course, Max. Let me put away these things, and I’ll be back with paper and ink, and you can tell me what to write.”

Poor Max, she thought, not to be able to read or write! Perhaps, now that they had Elsbeth and him to do the menial work, she might try to teach him.

When she returned with sheets of her own letter paper, her ink well, and a quill, Max looked so humbly grateful that her heart melted. “Now,” she said, smiling and settling herself to her task, “what shall it be?”

“Beggin’ your pardon, but I hardly know how to put the matter,” Max said, looking ashamed. I don’t have the gift of words. Auntie Rosa’s sent word that she’s been in such pain, she’s hardly been able to walk even with a crutch, miss. I got her some medicine from the apothecary on the market. He said it was the best thing in the world for the rheumatics, and to put it in some hot wine and take it every night. I’ll put the medicine on the post coach tonight, but she won’t know it’s waitin’ for her when it gets there. A letter would tell her. If you please, could you just say it’s waitin’ and greetings from her loving nephew Max?”

“Oh, Max, that was very thoughtful of you,” said Augusta warmly. “I hope your auntie will be much better for your kindness. Suppose I write, ‘Dear Auntie Rosa. Knowing of your poor health, I have found you a medicine that is said to be excellent for rheumatic pain. You are to take it every night mixed in some hot wine. I am sending it by post, and it will be waiting for you at the post station. Hoping to see you well very soon, I am your loving nephew etc.’ Will that serve?”

“You have the gift of words, miss. No need to mention the wine or the rheumatics. The apothecary put it on the medicine and auntie can read pretty well. Maybe if you’d just write, ‘What you want is on its way. I done my best. Now it’s up to you, dear auntie. You’ll be rid of the crutches and sticks and pratin’ lawyers, too. Haha.’ The ‘haha’ tells her I’m making a joke. She’s forever blamin’ her rheumatics on her landlord and wants to take him to court.” He chuckled.

Augusta did not think this an improvement on her own version, but Max’s aunt would recognize her nephew’s manner of speaking. She carefully copied down his words, only correcting his grammar a little. “There.” She held up the letter. “Shall I write at the bottom that it was written by me as dictated by you?”

Max grinned. “Yes, miss. Write ‘This was written for me in Lindau by an angel called Miss Augusta von Langsdorff.”

Augusta wrote all but the angel part, then dusted the ink with sand. “Now, how shall I direct it?” she asked, folding the sheet.

“Direct it?”

“Yes. Your aunt’s name and where she lives.”

Max slapped his forehead. “I’m a fool. I left her letter in my room. But never fear, Miss. I can copy that well enough. I’ll do it myself.” He stretched out his hand. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart, miss, and my auntie thanks you, too. She’ll be ever so glad to get this.”

12

Gods and Kings

Order is Heaven’s first law, and this confest,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest.

Alexander Pope,
Epistle 4

T
he assassin read Max’s clever letter and cursed. “What god-damned nonsense is this? ‘What you want is on its way. I done my best. Now it’s up to you, dear auntie. You’ll be rid of the crutches and sticks and pratin’ lawyers, too. Haha.’ The bastard calls me auntie? He must’ve been drunk.”

But on second thought, Max could not read or write, and it said very clearly that the letter had been written by the cripple’s sister. He studied it again, and finally light began to dawn. “What you want is on its way.” That must be the letter. But wait. “I done my best” and “now it’s up to you” surely means he didn’t get the letter and wants me to do it.” He frowned. Not good! “Crutches” and “lawyer” refer to the cripple and Stiebel. Max must mean that they are on their way with the letter. Yes, that must be it. He decided to show this to his employer. At the very least, it would prove that he had left someone behind to carry out instructions.

The great man was in a pleasant mood. He listened to the assassin’s story, read Max’s letter with interest, and said, “This man has more brains in his little finger than you have in that big head of yours. And the man can’t even read and write.”

The assassin started to protest.

“Shut up! This will be handled by my good Reynard. You can leave.”

*

Stiebel and Franz journeyed to Mannheim in a hired chaise with four post horses, stopping only to change horses and postilions and staying a mere two nights in inns.

Stiebel was distracted and spent most of the jolting, swaying journey clinging to the leather loops beside the windows and peering impatiently through the dirty glass. Once a delay caused by an overturned lumber wagon caused him to wonder aloud if he should have brought his pistols.

“Are you worried about highwaymen, sir?” asked Franz. “Surely there’s nothing to be afraid of. Besides, I have my sword.” He had purchased it for the journey and was inordinately proud of it.