The Left-Handed God (31 page)

*

Stiebel returned to the inn and climbed the stairs, gasping for breath, hoping against all hope to find Franz in.

He was not, and Stiebel read the note on the table with a gnawing fear. Why had he not been more careful of his charge? Franz was very young and no match for a murderer.

He recalled the strange mood Franz had been in the night before‌—‌not at all excitement or male pride, but rather as if he had a very guilty conscience. Stiebel decided to search Franz’s possessions. The sword was gone, and on top of Franz’s clothes in his
portemanteau
lay a fat letter addressed to him.

Stiebel tore this open, saw the will, and read Franz’s apology with horror. He glanced out of the window. The sun had set. Was it already too late?

He put the letter in his coat and started down the stairs. Halfway down, he suddenly felt faint. He swayed as the banister started to float up. Then the steps beneath his feet dropped away.

He came to in his bed. It was dark outside. By the light of his candle he saw an old man sitting beside his bed. He was a fusty-looking individual and wore an old-fashioned periwig like his own. Stiebel wondered idly if that scoundrel in Mannheim had been right and it was time to get a new wig made.

The man nodded and smiled. He had crooked yellow teeth. “Ah, we’re awake,” he said in an oily voice. “Good. Drink this.” He held a cup to Stiebel’s lips, and Stiebel drank. It tasted bitter, and he made a face. “And how do we feel?” asked the man solicitously.

Stiebel glared. “
My
shoulder hurts and so does
my
head. I’ve no idea about your condition, sir‌—‌or who you are. What is that vile draft you just gave me?”

“Ha, ha, ha. I see we’re quite ourselves again.” Such good humor grated. “I’m Thomas Winter, apothecary, at your service, sir. The innkeeper called me when you fell down the stairs. Nothing’s broken, though there will be some nasty bruises on your legs. And I expect you wrenched your shoulder a little when you tumbled. The medicine is to make you sleep.”

Memory returned, and Stiebel started up. “Hell and Death!”

Thomas Winter pushed him back. “Oh, no, we mustn’t. Rest is indicated. We’ll feel sleepy in a moment. We must lie still and doze a little.”

“No…‌you don’t understand…‌Franz…‌the young man with me. I must stop him…” But it was no good. His head and limbs felt very heavy and after a brief struggle, he gave up.

*

On his way to meet his death, Franz found life and sound and beauty again. The windows of the summer palace blazed, carriages awaited their owners, and sounds of music came from the theater. Franz wondered if the little princess was inside. He grieved for her, a child still but on the threshold of womanhood. What lay ahead for her? An arranged marriage to a princeling who had no interest in her except as a vehicle for mandatory procreation while he found his pleasure in the arms of women like Desirée. All of them would be cheated of love.

Love? No, better not to think of Love. It was a cheat.

When he entered the garden, he saw that the glazed doors of the summer palace stood open and paused. Inside, crystal chandeliers blazed with many candles above a gaily dressed crowd. Not far from him, a man bent his head to the woman beside him and whispered something. The woman laughed with a peculiar and melodious sound, not unlike that made by the plashing fountains and purling violins. Just so his ears had been seduced when he had walked here with Desirée. It now seemed to him that the woman’s laughter was false, as insubstantial as a bubble floating in the fountain, a practiced delusion and an invitation to the male.

The game of love.

And yet, and yet…‌oh, to be thus seduced again, to fall into the arms of Venus and become godlike again!

The distant clock struck the half hour. He had a mere half hour of life left. Turning his back on the glittering palace, he passed silently through the dark garden, passed silently the small hedge-enclosures where lovers moaned softly in each others’ arms as they approached consummation‌—‌
the little death
some poet had called it.

Leaving behind the straight open paths and
allées
of clipped trees and hedges, he lost himself in the darkness of winding trails. The gardens were still under construction, and parts resembled primeval forest. They would be laid out in the English style, the actors had told him, a new Arcadia where the lords and ladies of this country could play at the pastoral life of ancient shepherds and shepherdesses‌—‌or satyrs and nymphs.

His eyes searched for the snowy marble temple of Apollo where he and Desirée had found their own Elysium, but the trees were too dense. At night the area looked different, and the moon was little help. It merely elongated the shadows and turned trees and shrubs into black shapes, much like
Scherenschnitte
, those delicate scissor cuts of images from black paper. Only here the background was not white, but rather a slightly paler darkness studded by stars.

He blundered about, increasingly tense, for the clock must strike soon, and he was afraid to be thought a coward. It mattered that he do this final thing right‌—‌not because he wanted to kill the man who had put him in this position‌—‌he would delope rather than take another life‌—‌but because he must prove to himself that he was a man.

And because he owed a death to those he had killed.

By the time the tower clock of St. Pankratius struck midnight with twelve slow, somber peals, he was bent on death with a single-minded frenzy. When he finally burst from a stand of trees, and saw the Apollo temple just ahead, he laughed out loud with relief. He had come to his belvedere, to the white marble monument on a hill. It shone brighter than the moon. Only a few paces to its left was the green dell where he had made love to Desirée and where he would end his life.

Franz thought he saw the major in the temple above and started forward just as someone called his name.

He started to turn but felt a sharp blow to his upper back and heard the sound of a shot. He stumbled and fell. He was looking up into the shimmering sky where stars danced measured minuets along the milky way…‌to the music of a laughing boy who was playing a pianoforte…‌for him and the little princess.

19

Of Dark Deeds and Darker Desires

Get place and wealth, if possible with grace;
If not, by any means get wealth and place.

Alexander Pope
Epistles of Horace

F
or so well-laid a plan, it should not have gone wrong. He had arrived well ahead of the appointed hour and had hidden his rifle on a high shelf in the grotto underneath the Apollo temple. From the temple itself, he had a perfect overview of the green dell. There was an adequate moon and the distance was slight.

Afterward he mingled with the guests at the palace, chatting about the opera they were rehearsing and about the precocious child from Salzburg who was to give another performance tonight.

Near midnight, he slipped away as if for a breath of fresh air. In the grotto, he retrieved his rifle and primed the gun, then he climbed up to the temple and waited. A green youngster like Langsdorff would be early, he thought, smiling. Early for a duel that would not happen because duels were risky affairs, even for a marksman like himself. Honor was a vastly overrated commodity.

When he heard the church clock strike midnight, he became uneasy. What if the coward had backed out? He waited a little longer and was just getting to his feet to leave when he saw the cripple coming from the wrong direction.

It did not matter. The bullet would be fatal either way. He raised his rifle and sighted. Yes. His finger was tightening on the trigger when he heard shouts and then saw two people running toward Langsdorff.

His heart missed a beat. Now what? What was he to do now? In a moment, it would be too late.

The sound of the shot deafened him before he realized he had fired. His mind went blank, but the instinct for self-preservation took over. He dove down into the grotto, shoved the rifle into its hiding place, and ran.

*

Franz felt the pain on his head first. He muttered a protest and opened his eyes to a fierce, blinding light. Even behind his closed lids, the harsh brightness burned like the sun.

Phoebus Apollo, the sun god. Or his father’s God? Dante had been deemed worthy to look into that blinding light.

Something pressed against the pain in his head, and he flinched away. “I’m s-sorry,” he muttered. “I’m s-sorry. I t-tried, but I wasn’t g-good enough. B-brave enough. S-s-stupid.” The stutter was back‌—‌another flaw in his fatally flawed being.

“Yes,” replied a voice, sounding angry. “You were very foolish, my boy. Hold that lantern still so I can see. There’s a good deal of blood.”

The painful pressure returned, bringing back the memory of a narrow alley and of an angry woman shaking him. He peered cautiously through his lashes. The light was still too bright, but he could make out shapes.

“Hold still, for heaven’s sake,” snapped the voice, familiar now.

Fingers probed, and Stiebel’s face was bent over him. It was lit up strangely from one side and seemed to float in the darkness. What was Stiebel doing here? He muttered, “What?”

“It’s just a cut,” said Stiebel. “I thought you’d been shot. You must have hit your head on a stone.”

Another voice said, “He was luckier than poor Brandt. The bullet got him in the eye. He’s dead.”

“Oh, the pity of it! Poor man. He saved the boy’s life.”

Franz returned to the world.

Shading his eyes against the light, he struggled upright. Stiebel, kneeling beside him, dropped a bloody handkerchief. “Lie still,” he snapped. “I’d just got the better of it.”

Franz felt warm blood trickling down his face and dug out his own handkerchief. “W-what happened? S-someone shot at me?” Holding the cloth to his aching head, he looked around. Night. In the park. A stranger held the lantern that had blinded him, and a little way off lay a body. A servant in livery. In the distance, the park was coming alive with shouts and torches.

Stiebel asked, “Did you see him? Was it Eberau?”

Franz made a face. “No. I was late and hurrying to meet him when it happened.”

“Hah!” said Stiebel grimly. “The coward was making sure of you. You’d be dead, if the brave Brandt hadn’t pushed you down.”

“But I told you. I was late. We were to meet in the dell below the Apollo temple. Eberau was bringing pistols. He would not have fired at an unarmed man.”

Stiebel rose with a grunt. “Franz, I’m much too tired to argue with you. And here comes a whole crowd of people. I’m afraid it will be a long night. You’d best get up and prepare to tell your story.”

*

Eberau slipped into the festival hall from the
orangerie
. The Mozarts were giving their performance. The court, in full attendance on their Highnesses, stood in two large groups, gathered around the Kurfürst at one end of the room, and his wife at the other. The little Mozart boy was playing a pianoforte whose keys had been hidden by a piece of velvet. His father and older sister accompanied him on their violins. When the musical piece ended, applause broke out.

Eberau used the moment to move through the crowd toward Elizabeth Augusta. Young Mozart hopped down from his stool and made his bow. He wore a fine little velvet suit with gold lacing and a small powdered wig‌—‌exactly like a miniature courtier, except that he jumped and clapped his hands in childish glee and then scampered across the shimmering parquet floor to climb on the lap of the Kurfürstin and throw his arms around her neck.

Lèse
-
majesté!

The guests gasped, and Her Highness’s somewhat protuberant eyes bulged alarmingly. Mozart senior started after his son, but Eberau was quicker. He slid to a halt before Elizabeth Augusta and snatched the boy from her lap. With a chuckle, he told the child, “My boy, your eye for beauty is even better than your ear for music. You dared what the rest of us only dream of.” Abandoning the prodigy to his father, he turned to his sovereign and looked deeply into her startled eyes. Placing a hand over his heart, he said fervently, “Oh, that I had been that child,
Madame
.”

Elizabeth Augusta fluttered her fan. “He is a terrible liar, Karl. I’m an old woman and well past such foolishness.”

“Never!” Eberau sank on one knee and kissed her hand. “You wound me, my goddess. I would die for you. Nay, I would die happily to hear one kind word.”

To his delight, she did not take her hand away. Her smile was warm, but her teeth were bad. Eberau quickly lowered his eyes to the white bosom, most of which rested invitingly before his eyes and swelled with every breath. Tight lacing and low-cut dresses did wonders for the full breasts of older women, he thought, and was half tempted to lean forward and kiss them, when Her Highness finally bethought herself and detached her hand. “Not here,” she said softly.

Eberau thought he had not heard correctly. Flushing with pleasure, he murmured, “I shall become a hermit then,” and rose with a long, warm look into her pale eyes. As he moved aside, his eyes met those of the lady’s husband across the room. The Kurfürst glowered. Was the old goat jealous? Surely not. His ill temper was more likely directed at Elizabeth Augusta. Everyone knew there was no love lost between the two. Eberau placed his hand over his heart again and bowed toward His Highness. He planned to console the lonely lady.

At that moment, there was a disturbance. A servant entered and walked quickly to Baron von Moritz, who sat near Karl Theodor. He whispered to him, and Moritz turned to Karl Theodor, who started up, crying, “Shot? What does he mean: the fellow was shot?”

The room fell quiet. Eberau stepped behind Elizabeth Augusta’s chair and watched, his heart pounding. The Kurfürst looked agitated, and questions buzzed among the guests like a swarm of angry bees. A lackey closed all the doors to the garden.

Elizabeth Augusta turned and pulled his sleeve. “What happened, Karl? Who was shot?”