[FIC] Battaglia Con Brio, part 3/4
Title: Battaglia Con Brio (3/4)
Author: metacheese
Word Count: ~8,000 this part; roughly 40,000 over all
Team: Angst(y romance)
Prompts: Balcony, Lies
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: brief mentions of violence, physical trauma, hurt/comfort
Summary: When brilliant, controversial and irreverent musical prodigy Eames arrives at the court of the Emperor of Marchia, he immediately gets on the bad side of the Emperor’s official composer, Arthur, who slowly begins to plot to destroy him. But why is Eames so difficult to destroy?
The premise is based on the Peter Shaffer play/Milos Forman film “Amadeus”, but the plot often diverges quite wildly, and the ending is happy. However, it does include jealousy; composers sniping at each other; giggling, dirty-minded creatures; and ghostly mysterious figures in black.
Beta: eternalsojourn
Notes: Title is an Italian musical term meaning “battle, with spirit”.
The fourth part will exist very soon.
Part 2
It was the following Sunday, when Arthur attended church with Cobb and Ariadne, that he first saw the woman in black.
When the priest began the homily, Arthur’s eyes kept drifting to the stained-glass windows. They were the most astonishing of their kind in all of Marchia. The glass was of the purest, most piercing color; the pieces were cut so exquisitely they were rumored to have been shaped by angelic knives. What kinds of knives do angels have? he remembered Cobb asking one night at dinner. No, Mal, don’t laugh, I’m serious. Would an angel’s knife be made of earthly matter, or spiritual?
When he was finally able to tear his eyes away from the mouth of John the Baptist, Arthur glanced back and became aware of the presence of a woman who looked as if she might understand something about angelic knives.
She sat alone, in the second to last pew.
She wore a black gown, and an opaque black mantilla covered most of her face. Only one eye was visible between the panels of the mantilla. A huge, grey eye, swathed in shadow, full of unconquerable sadness. An eye that met his before he could look away to safety. When he turned slowly back around, she was gone.
§
The masked ball was a violently-colored whirlpool of flesh and fabric and pointy things. Huge skirts, belonging to both men and women, brushed against Arthur’s ankles. Fingernails got hooked on his jacket, monkeys and bright birds screeched from shoulders, and there was a layer of trampled masks, ribbons and slippers underfoot which got mashed like grapes as people danced and chased and fled monsters of all kinds. Arthur swore he saw a trail of blood streaked across several of the abandoned-object islands on the floor, and he tried not to wonder further.
Each time Arthur came to one of these things he was struck mostly by the unpleasant combined smell of all those bodies.
He mostly slunk along the walls, trying to avoid trouble. Mostly he was looking for, and not looking for, Eames. A few times he caught sight of a man with calves like Eames’s, or a laugh like Eames’s, but the other parts were wrong, and it was impossible to cobble together a person from parts of other people.
He had accepted the possibility that Eames wasn’t there when he found himself staring at a woman in a towering blonde wig. A man had his hand on her waist and was kissing her neck, and she swiveled her head around as he passed by. She cocked her eyebrow and pursed her red lips, which were overwhelmingly full. She was beautiful, and she was not a woman.
The spell was broken by the approach of another man, dressed in a simple black mask and black clothing, who bowed apologetically to the young lady he was with before he swiftly escorted Eames away. Arthur was able to retreat, muttering apologies to a pirate whose earthenware jug he knocked down. He had to remind himself of what Eames had done. It was not right to want to slip one’s hand up the skirts of a man who pries into one’s secrets, who abuses the sacred act of hospitality. But his cock ached at the thought of pushing those crinolines up and taking Eames into his mouth, his other hand rubbing its fingers over Eames’s beautiful rouged lips until the other man’s chin and cheeks were covered with the thick red stuff.
In his daze he barely realized that he was walking out onto the balcony. It was late August, but the air was already chill. Still, the weather was not quite cold enough for a thick black shawl, like the woman next to him wore over her head and wrapped around her shoulders.
She turned to him and he knew immediately that it was the woman from the church. This time more of her face was visible, but she was undoubtedly the same woman with the huge gray eyes. The woman who looked impossibly like Mallorie Cobb.
Arthur's pulse began to race. Without excusing himself, he shoved his way through a group consisting of a harlequin, a brightly-feathered bird, and a garden-variety fop. Each step seemed to slap against his heart as he ran breathlessly down the marble staircase. His hands skidded along the railing, though he was determined not to let his agitation show by grasping it like an old man or a drunkard.
He leaned against the scrolled post at the bottom. It was as if his body at that moment contained just a droplet of strength and was rationing it stingily. His fingers scrabbled for anything upright to hold onto.
Ducking beneath the stairwell, his hands clutched at his knees, and he doubled over. It was then that his thoughts chose to become articulate.
This cannot be a coincidence, he thought. She is always alone.She is always haunting the margins of gatherings, watching for someone, waiting. And her eyes pierce into my heart.
Someone has put this girl up to this to play at someone's conscience. Mine?
Someone knows.
Ears plugged up by the cotton of despair, he was slow to realize that he was not alone in the darkness under the stairs.
"I have listened to your excuses, and I find them insufficient. If you do not pay me the full balance of what you owe me by the fifteenth of October, last time’s grievous consequences will seem like a slap on the wrist, do you understand me?”
“But I promise you,” came the quiet but desperate reply. “I only need to sell this comp-”
“That’s quite enough,” said the first man’s reedy voice. “You will return upstairs, and you will pretend that nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and you will deliver all of the money to me by October fifteenth, or I will kill not only you but the also the people you love the most.”
Eames was silent for an agonizingly long time. “But Herr Graybeard,” he was finally able to croak, “there is no one I love in this city.”
Graybeard tsked. “I don’t think that’s true, Herr Eames. And trust me. I have ways of finding out whether or not you are lying. And if you are, I have ways of finding out exactly who it is you are trying to protect.”
Eames choked out his assent.
“Come along then, Herr Eames,” Graybeard said silkily. “You mustn’t make anyone wonder where you are.” Then Arthur heard their grass-muted footsteps die away.
Arthur waited until he was certain Eames and Graybeard had left. Then he crept back up the stairs.
He stood on the balcony watching the dancers, dazed, until he felt the light pressure of a hand on his arm.
"It's just me," Ariadne laughed, lowering her green feathered mask when Arthur shrank back in fear. "I've been looking for you. You've been running away from us all night. Has something more stimulating captured your attention?"
He glanced over her head, though there was no sign of Eames or his tormentor anywhere.
"Come on," she urged, tugging at his hand. "Dance with me." They stepped into a waltz.
§
"Have you heard?" Ariadne tried to swallow her mouthful of stew before she began talking, but she couldn't contain her excitement. "Marchia has received a gift from the Queen-Regent of Riesland. She had her most gifted goldsmith make an exquisite trinket as a token of her affection for the people of our country, and now it's being displayed at the Imperial Museum. And Yusuf's promised to take me to go see it tomorrow."
"But what is it, though?" Arthur asked.
Ariadne's brow crinkled. "No one is really sure."
"It's some sort of a mollusk," said Yusuf. "A mollusk made of gold, inlaid with enamel. They say it's got hundreds of thousands of florins worth of precious stones in it. And then, if you wind it up, it plays music, and all of the little fish and pearls inside it move up and down."
Arthur scraped his fork across his plate and watched the starchy brown liquid fill in the furrows. The smell of the stew, beef tips bobbing alongside root vegetables in a rich gravy, was enticing, but the moment he raised the first bite to his mouth he found himself unable to eat. He felt guilty. Ariadne, along with Yusuf's housekeeper, Brigid, had worked long and hard to prepare the meal for their guests. The silverware sparkled, and the table was covered with clean white linens. All of the chairs were filled except for one.
Since Arthur had discovered the evidence of Eames's trespassing, Eames had lived with Yusuf and Ariadne. But he wasn't at home tonight. Arthur didn't know why he would have expected any differently. Ariadne said he was perfectly fine, out giving a music lesson to the child of one of the few middle-class people who'd continued to hire him after his travesty of a concerto. Arthur's neck seemed determined to continually swivel his head towards the door.
“I have some news,” announced Yusuf, leaning forward and grinning. “Kapellmeister Miles has given me a leading role in his new opera. Rehearsals have already begun. It’s a very dark and sinister piece, about a man who murders his wife and is driven insane by guilt.”
“That is excellent news,” said Arthur, wishing he had the stomach to eat one of the hot rolls. Usually he ate two or three.
Ariadne and Yusuf began talking about the less artistic aspects of the performance. Someone had seen the soprano’s handkerchief hanging out of the oboist’s pocket. One of the supernumeraries always went left when she was supposed to go right. A viola player was rumored to be the Emperor’s illegitimate son. Two of the choir members refused to stand next to each other because one had borrowed a book from the other two years ago and it had fallen out of a carriage into a puddle.
"Arthur, is something wrong?" Ariadne asked. “You seem distracted.”
“Sorry,” he said, trying to make his glances at the door less obvious. “I’ve been busy with my own rehearsals, I suppose.” Yusuf and Ariadne looked at each other doubtfully.
After Brigid cleared the table, she set down a rich chocolate gateau. It was a Rieslandish recipe, Ariadne explained; the food and clothing of that tiny but expressive country were all the rage lately, especially since there had been talk of the Queen Regent’s son eventually marrying the Princess Naomi.
“Perhaps we should play a game,” Ariadne suggested, as she brushed a crumb from the side of Yusuf’s mouth.
“I’m sorry,” said Arthur. “I should probably leave. I’ve got an early rehearsal tomorrow.”
Yusuf chuckled. “This sounds familiar.”
“But he said that the last time, and he ended up staying!” Ariadne said sharply.
“Well,” said Yusuf, “Perhaps we’re no substitute for Eames.”
After they had finished eating and the table was cleared, he pushed his chair back from the table and looked at his hosts apologetically “Thank you for a wonderful dinner,” he said. “And one more thing-would you please send me a message letting me know that Herr Eames has returned home safely?”
Yusuf and Ariadne both nodded their assent and glanced at each other in quiet amusement.
Arthur pulled his coat tight around him and made his way out into the street just as the lamplighters were climbing up ladders to light the street lamps.
The way home took him past the street where Robert lived. He stood under Robert’s window, watching gold light bleed out from the edges of the curtains. His door jerked open, and Arthur startled, but it was only Robert’s landlord out for an evening walk. Arthur tipped his hat to the man, who bowed in recognition.
Arthur wasn’t sure why he was there. It wasn’t as if there was any unfinished business between him and Robert after all; he’d tried to apologize, Robert had shown him the brutal honesty he’d deserved, and showing his face around Robert again would likely just dredge up painful memories. But before he knew it his hand was on the doorknob, and then he was mounting the staircase with its burgundy carpet rubbed thin in the center of each step.
“You’re quite lucky I didn’t have company,” Robert said upon opening the door. There were dark circles beneath his eyes. Arthur hoped it was only due to a simple lack of sleep.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Arthur said, looking past Robert at the room with its spartan furniture and stacks of books. There was rather less furniture there than there had been the last time, he noted. “Are you-still living comfortably?”
Robert withdrew into the room and sat down on the couch. “Why? Do you expect me to ask you for money?”
Arthur stood at the end of the couch and played gingerly with the fringe of a blanket. “You know I would help you.”
“You’re not as well-off as you like to pretend, Arthur,” Robert sighed. “You only have your students and your monthly stipend from your patron. And since Eames came along, even fewer comissions.”
Arthur, throwing tact to the wind, sat down beside Robert on the couch. Robert looked down at his own knees, then stared ahead of him, as if hoping someone would burst through the door and save him from having to be alone with Arthur.
“Robert, I came here to apologize,” Arthur pleaded. “I know I apologized last time I saw you, but I was only there by coincidence. This time I wanted to apologize formally, to tell you that none of this has happened the way I intended it to.”
“So Eames ended your affair after he’d convalesced and didn’t need you anymore?” Robert asked acidly.
It would be unkind to tell Robert the truth, he thought. But it had weighed on him for weeks. And the cruel honesty between them now made Arthur feel strangely liberated to tell Robert what he could tell no-one else.
“One might say that,” Arthur said. Fear and embarrassment shot through him like a physical pain, like the snap of an eye-headache. “It was a bit more complicated, though.”
“I’m sure it was.” Robert turned to face him. Then in an instant his mask of composure vanished, and Arthur could see tension in his muscles, pain in his eyes. “I don’t even know why I even bothered to pretend, or to lie to you. I’ve known it for some time, that-“
“That what?” Arthur urged gently.
“That Eames was in love with you.”
“He has a funny way of showing it,” Arthur snapped. “He stole from me. He opened the cabinet where I keep my most private papers. And I don’t know what he was looking for, whether he wanted money or information or goods to pay off this Graybeard-“
“Graybeard is on his case?” Robert asked quietly. “As if the man didn’t have enough of everything and he needs to go after some poor musician who’s never entirely grown up.” He shook his head.
“You-you know this Graybeard?”
Robert pressed his lips together in a mirthless smile. “Only too well. Tell me, Arthur, do you know Graybeard’s real name?”
Arthur said no.
“All of Marchia knows him as a respectable merchant, an importer of luxury goods. A churchgoer, a patriot, a family man--for the most part. His name is Maurice Fischer.”
Arthur blinked rapidly, trying either to digest or to ignore what he’d just been told. “He’s-“
“My father,” said Robert. “Yes.”
§
Arthur had met Maurice Fischer. Fischer was a friend to many of the city’s noblemen, and Arthur had attended many a gala where Fischer’s exquisite taste in art or his success in acquiring some rare gem or animal horn. The man himself made a rather bland impression on Arthur; Arthur, despite his vast mental catalogue of trivia about most everyone he’d ever met, could not recall a single thing Fischer had ever said. He spoke mostly in monosyllables, and his face registered barely a hint of emotion; judging by his expressions, he seemed to be the sort of man who found everything either quite satisfactory or extremely boring. Arthur couldn’t fathom that this was the man who was almost singlehandedly in charge of all usury, smuggling, and illegal gambling in the empire. But Robert had told him that Fischer had powerful friends among the nobles, who protected him in exchange for a healthy cut of his profits.
Robert claimed that he had no idea where his father was. He hadn’t seen him in more than ten years. Nor, he swore, would anyone believe him if he testified against Fischer. They would only think of what he had to gain as a disinherited son, and he’d be laughed out of the magistrate’s office.
So it was up to Arthur to learn where Fischer lived. He’d gone back to Eames’s old favorite tavern, and Conrad the bartender had told him where to find Teresa. He’d visited Teresa’s cramped old room, remembering to bring sweets for the children.
“I can’t tell you where he is,” Teresa promised. Her eyes were wide, and Arthur could see that her hands shook.
“You will not give me any information that could help Herr Eames?” Arthur asked gently. Teresa’s youngest daughter was walking back and forth in half-circles behind Arthur’s back, staring openly at the finely-dressed stranger.
“I wish I could,” she said, rubbing at the cracked red skin of her hands. “But I don’t know anymore. He moves around a lot.”
“Do you know anyone who knows?”
Teresa rested her hand on the back of a chair over which a piece of putty-colored fabric was drying. “No.” Then her eyes drifted out the window, where a peddler was hawking newspapers. It seemed to jog her memory. “Yes.”
The boy’s name was Benjamin. He could often be found selling buttons and scraps of metal on the street, when he was not hustling at cards. Arthur found him engaged in the latter activity, sitting on the curb, his washed-out leather boots held together with string.
“Are you Benjamin? Arthur asked.
His immediate flight from the scene answered in the affirmative.
Arthur had grown up racing and running after his younger siblings on the farm, and his body had never forgotten how to move so fast it nearly disappeared. But the boy was faster. Benjamin darted down alleys, wove around horse carts and pedestrians. Arthur never entirely lost the sense of where he’d gone, as though the boy left a barely visible silver thread behind him as he ran. But when the boy turned down the street where the street vendors operated during the day, Arthur lost the thread. He’d most likely gone into or behind one of the empty market stalls, thought Arthur, resting his hand cautiously on the butt of his pistol.
He peered into the first stall. It was completely empty. He crept around to the back: nothing. He repeated this with several more stalls. Nothing. He was prepared to leave the third to last stall on the left when he saw, peeking out of a bale of hay in the corner, a black crescent that looked rather like the toe of a boot.
Swiftly he reached down into the hay and grabbed the boy’s arm. Benjamin shook himself free of the hay and blinked at Arthur.
“I’d prefer not to have to use this,” Arthur said, raising his pistol with the hand that was not clutching Benjamin’s elbow.
“Who are you?” the boy, who was not more than fourteen, whined. Arthur lowered the pistol.
“I’m a friend of Herr Graybeard’s,” he explained. “I want to know where he is.”
“I can’t tell you-ow!” he cried, as Arthur gripped his arm harder.
“If you tell me, and if you don’t lie or tell anyone else who’s been asking, I promise you, I can give you a reward much bigger than any he’s ever given you. Because unlike Herr Graybeard, money means very little to me, and I have no qualms about being generous.”
“All right. I swear, I really, really don’t know where he is now, though.”
“But you know where he might be.” Arthur loosened his grip a bit.
The boy nodded fearfully. “He’s got three houses that I know of. One’s in the Latin Quarter, that’s where he goes when he has to really lay low, I think. One’s by the Imperial Gardens, and that’s where he goes whenever he’s trying to entertain a mistress, it’s by all the parties and dress shops-“
A mistress. There had been a woman with Fischer at the masked ball.
“--And one other one, on the outskirts of town, near Hermanstrasse. Not sure what that one’s for. But I think he keeps most of his money there, ‘cause there are always people going there with bags.”
I know where he is.
“Have you seen him with his mask off?” Arthur asked.
Benjamin thought for a moment. “Once,” he said. “He’s an old man. He’s losing his hair, and he’s got a big nose, and his face is pock-marked.”
“Benjamin,” Arthur said, slipping a twenty-florin piece into his hand, “you have been immensely helpful.”
§
“I must admit, I’m somewhat confused, Herr Hahnemann,” Browning said, sipping his tea. “You are accusing Herr Fischer of being a criminal based on hearsay. I hope you know me well enough to know that I do not like my time being wasted.”
“I am not wasting your time,” Arthur argued. “The boy’s description of Graybeard matched Fischer’s perfectly.”
“There are a lot of older men with larger noses and pock-marked faces,” Browning laughed. “Perhaps I even fit that description. Are you ready to accuse me of theft and murder?”
“But Your Excellency, I have heard both their voices, and they sounded exactly the same.”
Browning stood up. “I am sorry, Herr Hahnemann,” he said. “I am truly sorry that your dear Herr Eames is in danger, and I know that you wish to do something to protect him, but do you really think that you alone will be able to do what our city’s entire constabulary has been unable to do for all these years? Fischer is an upstanding man. Please, do not trouble yourself about this any more.”
Arthur glanced back at Browning as he exited the meeting room. He was disappointed. He had always considered Browning an impartial judge of character, and he wondered why a man who was so willing to spend so much time analyzing the drinking habits of a court composer would so readily dismiss an accusation of such gravity from a man he allegedly trusted.
He went home; he had been spending less and less time in his quarters at the palace. It was late afternoon. He sat on the couch and tried to relax with a heavy volume of poetry.
It was ridiculous to think that the couch might still smell like Eames. He stretched out, turning his face into one of the pillows in defiance of that sweet, musky, lingering scent.
“It isn’t good to sulk, you know.” Christina stood in the door, rubbing a cloth over the head of a porcelain figurine.
“’M’not sulking,” he groaned, and propped himself up against the couch’s arm.
“There’s news from Riesland,” she said. “I heard it at the market. The gentry has revolted. They hanged the Queen Regent and all her advisors, and now there’s fighting in the streets.”
Arthur’s eyes shot open. “Have you heard any more?”
Christina shook her head. She looked worried. “I do hope nothing like that could happen here.”
Arthur smiled. “I don’t think it would.” He fingered the tassel on a pillow absently.
“Sir, is there anything I can do for you?” she asked. “I have been practicing my recitation-would you like me to read something to you?”
He nodded, and Christina went off to fetch a book from the adjoining room.
Christina had a talent for acting, and when Eames had stayed with them they had sometimes stayed up until after midnight reading plays aloud. The play she chose to read now, from a gilt-edged red leather volume, was a tragedy by the Rieslandish playwright Belliveau, the story of two inseparable friends torn apart by jealousy and misunderstanding. Now she did each of the parts in a different voice-a maiden’s voice high and lilting, a priest’s voice booming and sonorous, a strong young man’s voice deep and soft. Arthur wondered if he were imagining things, but he could have sworn that she lent one of the friend’s voices a faint Albionorian accent.
Her delivery was riveting, but Arthur was exhausted. The room became formless, and he finally allowed himself to sink into the cushions as sleep scooped out all the life in his body like a trawling net. His dreams were shallow and transparent. Usually they were sprawling, full of people and words and infinite passageways and rooms, as if their worlds had been created by hundreds of masons and gardeners and architects together long before he entered them. But this dream felt like a rough draft, a long, dusty figure splashed starkly across a void. Although he could only see parts of the figure at a time-a shoulder, a wrist, a lock of tangled hair-he knew well who it was, and he tried to reach out to him.
Forgive me, he tried to say. If you are the voice of judgment, I deserve the sentence.
Eames disappeared into a smothering fog, and Arthur was alone. Or he thought he was alone. He became aware of the heat of bodies behind him, of silent, faceless men. When they reached out, their dark robes fell down their arms and he saw that their long skeletal fingers did not end but dissolved into mist. They pushed him down onto his knees. He strained to open his eyes, but he was paralyzed.
Before him was a block of wood with a groove in it. A groove the width of a human neck. He felt a hand on the back of his head, an almost gentle hand, and it guided his head down; from there he knew what he was supposed to do. Meekly, he lowered his neck into the groove and waited. The blade came down with a smack.
Arthur opened his eyes and sat up, reacquainting himself with the light and the steady rhythm of his heart. The smacking sounds continued.
“Sir!” Anton called from outside, banging on the door. “I have urgent matters to discuss with you!”
Arthur sprang to his feet. “Come in.”
Anton looked perturbed, and when Arthur looked at him a second time he noticed that he was clutching his arm and that blood was reddening his sleeve.
“Dear Lord, what’s happened to you?” Arthur cried. “Christina?”
“I’m already fetching supplies,” she called breathlessly from the kitchen.
“Sir,” Anton began, “I was polishing your boots upstairs when I heard a loud noise. I went into the study to investigate, and there was a strange man in there. He drew his sword, and I drew mine, and luckily I was able to wound him badly enough that he could no longer fight. He’s lost quite a bit of blood, and although he was able to escape, I am sorry to say I am not sure he is alive.”
One of Fischer’s men, no doubt, Arthur thought. Thank God I taught Anton to duel.
“Can you tell me anything about him?”
“He was well-trained in swordfighting,” Anton replied. “He didn’t look or fight like a ruffian. And his blade was exceedingly well-made.”
Arthur tapped his fingers against his lips. “What did the blade look like?”
“It was-I didn’t get much of a chance to look at it, but I could have sworn that there were red stones, rubies perhaps, on the handle.”
Arthur’s breath caught in his throat.
“Are you absolutely sure about that?” he said. His voice cracked.
There were other possibilities, he thought. Perhaps the blade was stolen. Or forged.
But by all indications the man was a member of the Imperial Guard.
§
Arthur had learned the Emperor’s habits well. He knew that Saito valued solitude, and that there were times when he went riding or hunting alone. These times were not regular, and they certainly were not announced, but they often occurred when the Emperor was in a dark mood, and the troubles in Riesland cast a pall over everyone in the court. But Arthur also knew that the troubles in Riesland would make him far more cautious about his personal security. He would likely cling to his advisors. It would be hard to get so much as a note to him without it being examined. And who could he trust as a messenger?
There was only one person at the palace whom he trusted to be above corruption by greed or power-lust.
After Naomi had struggled through the last arpeggiated chords of an aubade by de Clerambault-all lesson long she had been distracted by the curtain-strained motes of light that signified the last of October’s warm days-Arthur slipped her a tiny piece of paper.
“I’d like to talk to your father,” he whispered, watching a coat-tail flash by outside the door. “And I’d prefer to see him alone.”
“Papa doesn’t like to see anyone alone these days,” she said. “He says it’s hard to trust people.”
“Your father is a wise man,” Arthur said, trying to lower his voice as much as he could. “But this is exactly why I need to speak with him alone. There is great danger to him.”
Naomi’s lip began to tremble. “I will tell him.”
§
Arthur had already agreed to be stripped down and inspected for weapons. Now they were riding through a forest populated by immense pines; only the thinnest splinters of light pierced through the moist darkness. The deft horses wove around the trees; their heavy footsteps on the crackling needles released surges of fragrance, a scent that always reminded Arthur of his father staggering home with bundles of wood that he’d coax into the shapes of cradles or chairs.
“We should ride a little farther away from the guards,” Arthur suggested. Saito looked at him suspiciously, but he dug his heels into the glossy black horse’s flanks.
When they came to a clearing, Arthur dismounted. Saito did the same.
“You have two minutes, Herr Hahnemann,” Saito warned.
Arthur took a deep breath and tried to compose his thoughts. He was about to accuse the Emperor’s most trusted official. If he was proven wrong, Arthur himself could be suspected of of sedition, of treason. But Arthur’s instinct told him beyond a doubt that Browning was colluding with Fischer. And that, therefore, exposing Browning would mean exposing Fischer for what he actually was. Otherwise the merchant would go on enjoying the protection of all those with the power to arrest him. And Eames…Arthur tried to push all those thoughts from his head.
“Your Highness,” Arthur began, his tongue feeling like fast-drying clay, “I have reason to believe that the Chancellor is not who he appears to be.”
Saito’s brow furrowed. “In what sense?”
Arthur stepped cautiously closer. He turned and saw vermillion shapes cut through eclipsing green cover; the guards were breaching the forest wall.
“I had evidence that the merchant Maurice Fischer is actually a criminal, by the name of Graybeard.” Saito’s face perked in recognition. “I heard his voice at a ball, threatening a friend. Then Fischer’s son told me the truth about Graybeard, and then I began to think back on my encounters with Fischer. His voice sounded exactly the same. A boy who claimed he saw Graybeard without his mask on described him, and he sounds like Fischer.”
“And what does Browning have to do with this?” Saito asked.
Arthur cleared his throat. “I met with Browning to tell him what I’d heard. Browning dismissed it. That night, a man broke into my home, presumably with intent to kill me. My manservant fought him off, but he saw that the intruder used the blade of an Imperial Guard.”
“This is circumstantial evidence, Herr Hahnemann,” Saito accused. “And you have reasons for wanting Browning out of his office, do you not? He stood in the way of your receiving the position of Kapellmeister.”
“I did not desire the position of Kapellmeister, Your Worship,” Arthur said earnestly. “Herr Browning has always been a supporter of my music, and until now, I have always had the utmost respect and trust for him. But I believe that he tried to have me killed because I discovered the truth. And I believe that he is a danger to your court, and possibly to you.”
Saito looked ready to open his mouth to cut Arthur’s speech off.
“And-and, Your Worship-I heard Fisc-Graybeard-promising to put an end to Eames’s life. If you do not act, the greatest musical mind of our time will be snuffed out as if he were no more significant than a rat. I may be wrong, but you must at least try to cut off this corruption at its roots. Expose Browning, and you will expose Fischer.”
The guards were approaching. Saito halted them with a hand.
“And what do you suggest I do about this, Herr Hahnemann?”
“I think,” Arthur said softly, “that there might be a way to catch him.”
§
“I have no idea how to catch him,” Arthur moaned, head in his hands, elbows resting on Yusuf’s table. Ariadne waved a forkful of spiced apples under his nose, but he grunted and rested his forehead on the tablecloth.
“What is the relationship between Browning and Fischer anyway?” Yusuf asked.
“The way Robert, his son, explained it to me, Fischer’s wealthy patrons offer him protection in exchange for money and luxury goods. And they allow him to maintain his monopoly on trade in the city.”
“Trade.” Ariadne interjected. “Can we lure Browning out with the promise of goods? That’s what he’s after, isn’t it?”
“I presume so,” said Arthur. “But he’ll be suspicious if someone promises him money-we don’t know how their interactions work, and how much of a cut he gets from Fischer.”
Yusuf held his fork in a loose fist and tapped its end on the table, the way he often did with a pencil when he was thinking. “What if we have Fischer ask him for a favor?”
“What do you mean?” Arthur said.
“Well, as chancellor, Browning has access to certain things at the palace. Things that Fischer might very well want to own or to sell. What black market trader wouldn’t want to get his hands on-“
“The Golden Mollusk!” Ariadne interjected, nearly leaping out of her seat. “Send Browning a forged note from Graybeard asking him to acquire the golden mollusk. Then, if Browning’s really working for him, he’ll bring it to a dropoff location.”
Arthur chewed his lip. “But how’s that going to prove anything? Who’s going to see all of this happen?”
“Well,” said Yusuf, “the Emperor himself would have to see it, if he’s going to believe it.”
“And where? Browning’s not going to be foolish enough to conduct illicit business in the palace or anywhere he can be seen. We need somewhere that’s private enough to inspire confidence, but public enough where people can hide and listen.”
“The Hedge Maze,” stated Ariadne.
“You are brilliant,” Yusuf said, beaming at her. “The Hedge Maze would be perfect. You get him to meet his contact in there. Then, you’re hiding on the other side of wherever he is, and you can hear everything. The Emperor can even hide guards in there. And when he gives himself away, you can pounce on him.”
Ariadne had grabbed a notebook and a quill and was drawing a map of the hedge maze, hurriedly and crookedly, but with perfect accuracy. I’ve walked this maze so many times I know every twist and turn. Here.” She touched the quill to the paper and the ink bled out in a thick circle. “There’s a hidden chamber in here. It looks like solid foliage, but there’s actually a door you can walk through. I only came upon it by accident.”
“You think he’s going to fall for this?” Arthur asked skeptically.
“He may not,” said Yusuf. “But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
Arthur nodded reluctantly.
“Is Eames here?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
“I’m not sure,” Yusuf answered. “You can go upstairs and see, if you like.”
Arthur folded up his napkin. He walked through the parlor and up the stairs, treading as soundlessly as possible. The room where Eames was staying was dark and cold. Arthur stepped up to the bed and ran his fingertips over the covers; the bed was flat. He walked around to the other side to pull the curtains open, and when light flooded the room he took note of a long, looped piece of leather poking out from under the bed. He gave it a tug. It was attached to a bag, a heavy one judging by the resistance it gave. Inside the bag was the glint of metal. Arthur reached into it and pulled out a silver candlestick studded with opal and citrine. Reduced to stealing from his students’ parents to pay off his debts, Arthur thought, his heart flooding with sadness like a cracked barrel.
Oh, Eames.
§
The plan was in place.
Arthur had convinced Robert to forge a note in his father’s handwriting, asking Browning to meet Fischer’s messenger in the hedge maze at nine o’clock with the golden mollusk in hand.
He had convinced Benjamin to play the role of Fischer’s messenger, a role the boy knew well. If any more was needed to persuade Browning to appear at the meeting spot, Benjamin was prepared to explain that the current upheaval in Riesland and the subduing of its royalty had put Rieslandish goods at a premium. It was certain to fetch a prettier florin now than before, even when it had been the perplexed and amused talk of all Marchia.
He had convinced Saito to accompany him, in the garb of a beggar, to the hedge maze with his two most trusted guards.
All that was left to do was to convince Browning to appear at the hedge maze. If all went well, if Benjamin actually could be trusted to find Browning in town and show him the proper dead end, if the note appeared authentic, then Arthur should be hearing the sound of footsteps at any time. But there was no sign of Browning. He could hear Benjamin muttering to himself on the other side of the wall as Arthur pressed his ear to the door.
Finally, when he had begun to despair, Arthur heard the sound of heavy footsteps. It was apparent that there was more than one person with Browning.
“We should probably inspect this maze first,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said from a distance. “Make sure we’re completely alone. You wait here, boy.”
Arthur closed his his eyes. He heard the voice becoming louder and clearer as he neared the hidden chamber; then the footsteps died away.
The footsteps became louder again.
“Looks like it isn’t a trap then,” Browning said. “And if someone’s trying to box us in here, the others outside will take care of it.” He doesn’t know about the hidden chamber. Arthur released the breath he’d been holding.
Then Benjamin began to speak.
“Have you brought the goods, Your Excellency?” There was silence.
Finally Browning spoke. “No, boy, I have not brought the goods. And do you know why?”
“Why?” Benjamin asked.
“Because this little note of yours?” There was the sound of paper rustling. “It’s quite obviously a fake. Herr Fischer’s penmanship has deteriorated noticeably with age. This is his handwriting from ten years ago. I don’t know who you’re working for, but it isn’t any friend of mine.” Browning laughed. “Heinrich, make this boy talk.” Arthur heard the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Wait.” Saito pushed the door open, and Arthur held up a lantern that illuminated the shock on Browning’s face.
Browning raised his hands and let his pistol clatter to the soft ground.
§
“I can’t believe you managed it.” Ariadne squeezed Arthur’s hands.
“I did so little,” he said, sheepishly meeting her eyes.
“But you knew it was possible.”
They strolled along past the market stalls at midday. Arthur tried to resist the temptations of Turkish taffy and candy glass while Ariadne picked up a strand of coral beads to admire them.
“You know, you can afford to buy those now,” he mentioned. She turned to look at him, wide-eyed. He smiled softly.
“I insisted that he allow Fischer’s son to take control of the company, and that he allow him to keep much of the money in Fischer’s coffers. Most of it has been returned to the ones from whom it was stolen. But I also received a percentage which I thought it would only be right to share with you and Yusuf.”
“Why do you care so much about Fischer’s son? Oh,” she said knowingly, taking note of his downcast glance. “You do a lot of things out of guilt, don’t you, Arthur.” She let the beads fall between her fingers.
He drifted towards a stand where a woman was selling trays of rosewater candy. “No more than most people, I suppose.” He handed the woman five florins and wrapped his mouth around the small pink square. It was a good excuse not to continue the conversation.
§
The Royal Hall was bustling. Fans snapped open like the whirring click of night insects. Shoes clicked and fabric rustled. Arthur looked out over the foamy sea of wigs and prayed no one was looking back at him. It was a foolish hope.
He was surprised to see such a crowd. But the Purgatorio had given Arthur his reputation. It was the only piece with Arthur’s name attached to it that deserved to be called genius. As the seats became packed with people in stiff, shimmering clothes, Arthur tried to keep his back pressed to the stage walls, listening to the orchestra tune their instruments. He didn’t want to be congratulated.
He surveyed the audience. So many of the faces beneath the gold-ribbed dome of the opera house were as indistinct as loaves of bread. Herr Miles sat in the front row, next to the Emperor and Empress. He recognized friends and acquaintances and court officials and pretended he didn’t recognize them at all.
Then he caught sight of gleaming pink lips pressed together, and eyes which managed to give off an engaged intensity despite the difficulty of telling exactly where they were looking. Eames often seemed to be watching something no one else could see. Or he could do two things at once: he could look at a person as though they the only human thing that mattered, but then there would always be some angel or demon begging for his attention, poking out from a place between the strands of ether that existed only for a man whose vision could stop time and part space. Arthur looked away.
He had hoped that she wasn’t in the audience. But of course she was, sitting silently, almost unblinking, her black mantilla draped over her head. Tonight she would have her full power. He’d almost forgotten about her while he was chasing Fischer, despite her presence at every rehearsal of the Purgatorio; his mind was focused on his goal, on his fear of letting Eames slip away. But now he’d returned to his ordinary life, where he was expected to be the composer that he was not.
When the lights dimmed and he raised his hands to usher forward the slow, crawling whine of the violin, the wail of the dusty-handed soul doomed to crawl upwards without progress, he could feel her eyes on his back. Demanding him to break his silence. His arms seemed to fill with lead. It was grueling to raise them, and he wondered what would happen if he simply let them drop, let his head hang down. Let himself fall to the floor. If it is the belief that one deserves to live that keeps us upright, he thought, it is a wonder that I have stood all this time.
Glorious as it was, he barely heard the music as he conducted. He had done it so many times before, by rote, barely present in his own skin.
The final movement drew to its anxious close, the violin like a being at last outpacing its hornet tormentors, but without joy. Arthur let his arms fall and imagined the applause like a wave that was drowning him. It didn’t help. It still sounded like cheering.
“Please,” he vaguely heard himself say, muffled by all of the clapping. “Please.”
When he held up his hands, they finally fell silent.
It was so difficult to breathe at that moment that Arthur wondered how it had been so easy all of his life. His knees trembled. But he had to say it. It was no use keeping it a secret if someone already knew. A secret revealed to one is a secret no more, as the saying went.
“You should not be clapping for me,” he choked out. It felt like retching. “I did not write the Purgatorio.”
The crowd remained in their shocked silence.
“The piece was written by a woman I knew well. Her name-“ He looked for the woman in the crowd, as though she were actually the person she was pretending to be. “Her name was Mallorie Cobb.” He did not have the strength to turn around to see her husband’s reaction. “She was a composer, and a far better one than I. I am not even worthy of that name. But because of her sex, no one took her seriously. So we agreed that I would take credit for the Purgatorio, because she only wanted to see it performed. It was an enormous success, as you know. And then, then-“ Arthur put his hand to his mouth, dreading what came next-“she asked me if I would tell the world who the work’s true author was. I promised her I would. And I never did. I was so enamored of the money and the praise and the illustrious company and I could not bring myself to give it up. And then…then she died before I could make it right.”
The concert hall swam before him. The people whose faces he could focus on briefly wore looks of confusion and horror.
“I hereby resign from my post as court composer. I am not worthy to stand before any of you. May God keep you all.”
Arthur was running before anyone could chase him, could jeer at him.
He ran through the corridor backstage and out into the frigid open air. He had left his overcoat in the dressing room, and his jacket was not warm enough to prevent the cold from seeping under his sleeves. He was frozen in place, caught between the backs of two buildings on a sunken cobblestone road. Should he go home? Should he go to an inn where no one knew him? He did not want to face his own servants. He wanted to be in a carriage shivering along down a bumpy road, headed for a farm where he could live out the rest of his days chopping wood and pulling up turnips.
“Arthur.”
At the sound of his name he turned around slowly. The darkness was near-total, but he knew the voice. Of course he knew the voice. It had resounded in his head every night as he tried to fall asleep.
“Leave me alone,” he muttered. “You’ve done your good deed, exposed me as a fraud. Forgive me if I don’t feel like offering you my thanks right now.”
“Arthur, I don’t know what you’re talking about-“ Eames called after him, but Arthur realized at that moment that it was not necessary to choose the perfect direction. It was only necessary to escape. He ran, blood percussive in his ears, down the deserted city streets. No one followed.
Part 4
Author: metacheese
Word Count: ~8,000 this part; roughly 40,000 over all
Team: Angst(y romance)
Prompts: Balcony, Lies
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: brief mentions of violence, physical trauma, hurt/comfort
Summary: When brilliant, controversial and irreverent musical prodigy Eames arrives at the court of the Emperor of Marchia, he immediately gets on the bad side of the Emperor’s official composer, Arthur, who slowly begins to plot to destroy him. But why is Eames so difficult to destroy?
The premise is based on the Peter Shaffer play/Milos Forman film “Amadeus”, but the plot often diverges quite wildly, and the ending is happy. However, it does include jealousy; composers sniping at each other; giggling, dirty-minded creatures; and ghostly mysterious figures in black.
Beta: eternalsojourn
Notes: Title is an Italian musical term meaning “battle, with spirit”.
The fourth part will exist very soon.
Part 2
It was the following Sunday, when Arthur attended church with Cobb and Ariadne, that he first saw the woman in black.
When the priest began the homily, Arthur’s eyes kept drifting to the stained-glass windows. They were the most astonishing of their kind in all of Marchia. The glass was of the purest, most piercing color; the pieces were cut so exquisitely they were rumored to have been shaped by angelic knives. What kinds of knives do angels have? he remembered Cobb asking one night at dinner. No, Mal, don’t laugh, I’m serious. Would an angel’s knife be made of earthly matter, or spiritual?
When he was finally able to tear his eyes away from the mouth of John the Baptist, Arthur glanced back and became aware of the presence of a woman who looked as if she might understand something about angelic knives.
She sat alone, in the second to last pew.
She wore a black gown, and an opaque black mantilla covered most of her face. Only one eye was visible between the panels of the mantilla. A huge, grey eye, swathed in shadow, full of unconquerable sadness. An eye that met his before he could look away to safety. When he turned slowly back around, she was gone.
§
The masked ball was a violently-colored whirlpool of flesh and fabric and pointy things. Huge skirts, belonging to both men and women, brushed against Arthur’s ankles. Fingernails got hooked on his jacket, monkeys and bright birds screeched from shoulders, and there was a layer of trampled masks, ribbons and slippers underfoot which got mashed like grapes as people danced and chased and fled monsters of all kinds. Arthur swore he saw a trail of blood streaked across several of the abandoned-object islands on the floor, and he tried not to wonder further.
Each time Arthur came to one of these things he was struck mostly by the unpleasant combined smell of all those bodies.
He mostly slunk along the walls, trying to avoid trouble. Mostly he was looking for, and not looking for, Eames. A few times he caught sight of a man with calves like Eames’s, or a laugh like Eames’s, but the other parts were wrong, and it was impossible to cobble together a person from parts of other people.
He had accepted the possibility that Eames wasn’t there when he found himself staring at a woman in a towering blonde wig. A man had his hand on her waist and was kissing her neck, and she swiveled her head around as he passed by. She cocked her eyebrow and pursed her red lips, which were overwhelmingly full. She was beautiful, and she was not a woman.
The spell was broken by the approach of another man, dressed in a simple black mask and black clothing, who bowed apologetically to the young lady he was with before he swiftly escorted Eames away. Arthur was able to retreat, muttering apologies to a pirate whose earthenware jug he knocked down. He had to remind himself of what Eames had done. It was not right to want to slip one’s hand up the skirts of a man who pries into one’s secrets, who abuses the sacred act of hospitality. But his cock ached at the thought of pushing those crinolines up and taking Eames into his mouth, his other hand rubbing its fingers over Eames’s beautiful rouged lips until the other man’s chin and cheeks were covered with the thick red stuff.
In his daze he barely realized that he was walking out onto the balcony. It was late August, but the air was already chill. Still, the weather was not quite cold enough for a thick black shawl, like the woman next to him wore over her head and wrapped around her shoulders.
She turned to him and he knew immediately that it was the woman from the church. This time more of her face was visible, but she was undoubtedly the same woman with the huge gray eyes. The woman who looked impossibly like Mallorie Cobb.
Arthur's pulse began to race. Without excusing himself, he shoved his way through a group consisting of a harlequin, a brightly-feathered bird, and a garden-variety fop. Each step seemed to slap against his heart as he ran breathlessly down the marble staircase. His hands skidded along the railing, though he was determined not to let his agitation show by grasping it like an old man or a drunkard.
He leaned against the scrolled post at the bottom. It was as if his body at that moment contained just a droplet of strength and was rationing it stingily. His fingers scrabbled for anything upright to hold onto.
Ducking beneath the stairwell, his hands clutched at his knees, and he doubled over. It was then that his thoughts chose to become articulate.
This cannot be a coincidence, he thought. She is always alone.She is always haunting the margins of gatherings, watching for someone, waiting. And her eyes pierce into my heart.
Someone has put this girl up to this to play at someone's conscience. Mine?
Someone knows.
Ears plugged up by the cotton of despair, he was slow to realize that he was not alone in the darkness under the stairs.
"I have listened to your excuses, and I find them insufficient. If you do not pay me the full balance of what you owe me by the fifteenth of October, last time’s grievous consequences will seem like a slap on the wrist, do you understand me?”
“But I promise you,” came the quiet but desperate reply. “I only need to sell this comp-”
“That’s quite enough,” said the first man’s reedy voice. “You will return upstairs, and you will pretend that nothing out of the ordinary has happened, and you will deliver all of the money to me by October fifteenth, or I will kill not only you but the also the people you love the most.”
Eames was silent for an agonizingly long time. “But Herr Graybeard,” he was finally able to croak, “there is no one I love in this city.”
Graybeard tsked. “I don’t think that’s true, Herr Eames. And trust me. I have ways of finding out whether or not you are lying. And if you are, I have ways of finding out exactly who it is you are trying to protect.”
Eames choked out his assent.
“Come along then, Herr Eames,” Graybeard said silkily. “You mustn’t make anyone wonder where you are.” Then Arthur heard their grass-muted footsteps die away.
Arthur waited until he was certain Eames and Graybeard had left. Then he crept back up the stairs.
He stood on the balcony watching the dancers, dazed, until he felt the light pressure of a hand on his arm.
"It's just me," Ariadne laughed, lowering her green feathered mask when Arthur shrank back in fear. "I've been looking for you. You've been running away from us all night. Has something more stimulating captured your attention?"
He glanced over her head, though there was no sign of Eames or his tormentor anywhere.
"Come on," she urged, tugging at his hand. "Dance with me." They stepped into a waltz.
§
"Have you heard?" Ariadne tried to swallow her mouthful of stew before she began talking, but she couldn't contain her excitement. "Marchia has received a gift from the Queen-Regent of Riesland. She had her most gifted goldsmith make an exquisite trinket as a token of her affection for the people of our country, and now it's being displayed at the Imperial Museum. And Yusuf's promised to take me to go see it tomorrow."
"But what is it, though?" Arthur asked.
Ariadne's brow crinkled. "No one is really sure."
"It's some sort of a mollusk," said Yusuf. "A mollusk made of gold, inlaid with enamel. They say it's got hundreds of thousands of florins worth of precious stones in it. And then, if you wind it up, it plays music, and all of the little fish and pearls inside it move up and down."
Arthur scraped his fork across his plate and watched the starchy brown liquid fill in the furrows. The smell of the stew, beef tips bobbing alongside root vegetables in a rich gravy, was enticing, but the moment he raised the first bite to his mouth he found himself unable to eat. He felt guilty. Ariadne, along with Yusuf's housekeeper, Brigid, had worked long and hard to prepare the meal for their guests. The silverware sparkled, and the table was covered with clean white linens. All of the chairs were filled except for one.
Since Arthur had discovered the evidence of Eames's trespassing, Eames had lived with Yusuf and Ariadne. But he wasn't at home tonight. Arthur didn't know why he would have expected any differently. Ariadne said he was perfectly fine, out giving a music lesson to the child of one of the few middle-class people who'd continued to hire him after his travesty of a concerto. Arthur's neck seemed determined to continually swivel his head towards the door.
“I have some news,” announced Yusuf, leaning forward and grinning. “Kapellmeister Miles has given me a leading role in his new opera. Rehearsals have already begun. It’s a very dark and sinister piece, about a man who murders his wife and is driven insane by guilt.”
“That is excellent news,” said Arthur, wishing he had the stomach to eat one of the hot rolls. Usually he ate two or three.
Ariadne and Yusuf began talking about the less artistic aspects of the performance. Someone had seen the soprano’s handkerchief hanging out of the oboist’s pocket. One of the supernumeraries always went left when she was supposed to go right. A viola player was rumored to be the Emperor’s illegitimate son. Two of the choir members refused to stand next to each other because one had borrowed a book from the other two years ago and it had fallen out of a carriage into a puddle.
"Arthur, is something wrong?" Ariadne asked. “You seem distracted.”
“Sorry,” he said, trying to make his glances at the door less obvious. “I’ve been busy with my own rehearsals, I suppose.” Yusuf and Ariadne looked at each other doubtfully.
After Brigid cleared the table, she set down a rich chocolate gateau. It was a Rieslandish recipe, Ariadne explained; the food and clothing of that tiny but expressive country were all the rage lately, especially since there had been talk of the Queen Regent’s son eventually marrying the Princess Naomi.
“Perhaps we should play a game,” Ariadne suggested, as she brushed a crumb from the side of Yusuf’s mouth.
“I’m sorry,” said Arthur. “I should probably leave. I’ve got an early rehearsal tomorrow.”
Yusuf chuckled. “This sounds familiar.”
“But he said that the last time, and he ended up staying!” Ariadne said sharply.
“Well,” said Yusuf, “Perhaps we’re no substitute for Eames.”
After they had finished eating and the table was cleared, he pushed his chair back from the table and looked at his hosts apologetically “Thank you for a wonderful dinner,” he said. “And one more thing-would you please send me a message letting me know that Herr Eames has returned home safely?”
Yusuf and Ariadne both nodded their assent and glanced at each other in quiet amusement.
Arthur pulled his coat tight around him and made his way out into the street just as the lamplighters were climbing up ladders to light the street lamps.
The way home took him past the street where Robert lived. He stood under Robert’s window, watching gold light bleed out from the edges of the curtains. His door jerked open, and Arthur startled, but it was only Robert’s landlord out for an evening walk. Arthur tipped his hat to the man, who bowed in recognition.
Arthur wasn’t sure why he was there. It wasn’t as if there was any unfinished business between him and Robert after all; he’d tried to apologize, Robert had shown him the brutal honesty he’d deserved, and showing his face around Robert again would likely just dredge up painful memories. But before he knew it his hand was on the doorknob, and then he was mounting the staircase with its burgundy carpet rubbed thin in the center of each step.
“You’re quite lucky I didn’t have company,” Robert said upon opening the door. There were dark circles beneath his eyes. Arthur hoped it was only due to a simple lack of sleep.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Arthur said, looking past Robert at the room with its spartan furniture and stacks of books. There was rather less furniture there than there had been the last time, he noted. “Are you-still living comfortably?”
Robert withdrew into the room and sat down on the couch. “Why? Do you expect me to ask you for money?”
Arthur stood at the end of the couch and played gingerly with the fringe of a blanket. “You know I would help you.”
“You’re not as well-off as you like to pretend, Arthur,” Robert sighed. “You only have your students and your monthly stipend from your patron. And since Eames came along, even fewer comissions.”
Arthur, throwing tact to the wind, sat down beside Robert on the couch. Robert looked down at his own knees, then stared ahead of him, as if hoping someone would burst through the door and save him from having to be alone with Arthur.
“Robert, I came here to apologize,” Arthur pleaded. “I know I apologized last time I saw you, but I was only there by coincidence. This time I wanted to apologize formally, to tell you that none of this has happened the way I intended it to.”
“So Eames ended your affair after he’d convalesced and didn’t need you anymore?” Robert asked acidly.
It would be unkind to tell Robert the truth, he thought. But it had weighed on him for weeks. And the cruel honesty between them now made Arthur feel strangely liberated to tell Robert what he could tell no-one else.
“One might say that,” Arthur said. Fear and embarrassment shot through him like a physical pain, like the snap of an eye-headache. “It was a bit more complicated, though.”
“I’m sure it was.” Robert turned to face him. Then in an instant his mask of composure vanished, and Arthur could see tension in his muscles, pain in his eyes. “I don’t even know why I even bothered to pretend, or to lie to you. I’ve known it for some time, that-“
“That what?” Arthur urged gently.
“That Eames was in love with you.”
“He has a funny way of showing it,” Arthur snapped. “He stole from me. He opened the cabinet where I keep my most private papers. And I don’t know what he was looking for, whether he wanted money or information or goods to pay off this Graybeard-“
“Graybeard is on his case?” Robert asked quietly. “As if the man didn’t have enough of everything and he needs to go after some poor musician who’s never entirely grown up.” He shook his head.
“You-you know this Graybeard?”
Robert pressed his lips together in a mirthless smile. “Only too well. Tell me, Arthur, do you know Graybeard’s real name?”
Arthur said no.
“All of Marchia knows him as a respectable merchant, an importer of luxury goods. A churchgoer, a patriot, a family man--for the most part. His name is Maurice Fischer.”
Arthur blinked rapidly, trying either to digest or to ignore what he’d just been told. “He’s-“
“My father,” said Robert. “Yes.”
§
Arthur had met Maurice Fischer. Fischer was a friend to many of the city’s noblemen, and Arthur had attended many a gala where Fischer’s exquisite taste in art or his success in acquiring some rare gem or animal horn. The man himself made a rather bland impression on Arthur; Arthur, despite his vast mental catalogue of trivia about most everyone he’d ever met, could not recall a single thing Fischer had ever said. He spoke mostly in monosyllables, and his face registered barely a hint of emotion; judging by his expressions, he seemed to be the sort of man who found everything either quite satisfactory or extremely boring. Arthur couldn’t fathom that this was the man who was almost singlehandedly in charge of all usury, smuggling, and illegal gambling in the empire. But Robert had told him that Fischer had powerful friends among the nobles, who protected him in exchange for a healthy cut of his profits.
Robert claimed that he had no idea where his father was. He hadn’t seen him in more than ten years. Nor, he swore, would anyone believe him if he testified against Fischer. They would only think of what he had to gain as a disinherited son, and he’d be laughed out of the magistrate’s office.
So it was up to Arthur to learn where Fischer lived. He’d gone back to Eames’s old favorite tavern, and Conrad the bartender had told him where to find Teresa. He’d visited Teresa’s cramped old room, remembering to bring sweets for the children.
“I can’t tell you where he is,” Teresa promised. Her eyes were wide, and Arthur could see that her hands shook.
“You will not give me any information that could help Herr Eames?” Arthur asked gently. Teresa’s youngest daughter was walking back and forth in half-circles behind Arthur’s back, staring openly at the finely-dressed stranger.
“I wish I could,” she said, rubbing at the cracked red skin of her hands. “But I don’t know anymore. He moves around a lot.”
“Do you know anyone who knows?”
Teresa rested her hand on the back of a chair over which a piece of putty-colored fabric was drying. “No.” Then her eyes drifted out the window, where a peddler was hawking newspapers. It seemed to jog her memory. “Yes.”
The boy’s name was Benjamin. He could often be found selling buttons and scraps of metal on the street, when he was not hustling at cards. Arthur found him engaged in the latter activity, sitting on the curb, his washed-out leather boots held together with string.
“Are you Benjamin? Arthur asked.
His immediate flight from the scene answered in the affirmative.
Arthur had grown up racing and running after his younger siblings on the farm, and his body had never forgotten how to move so fast it nearly disappeared. But the boy was faster. Benjamin darted down alleys, wove around horse carts and pedestrians. Arthur never entirely lost the sense of where he’d gone, as though the boy left a barely visible silver thread behind him as he ran. But when the boy turned down the street where the street vendors operated during the day, Arthur lost the thread. He’d most likely gone into or behind one of the empty market stalls, thought Arthur, resting his hand cautiously on the butt of his pistol.
He peered into the first stall. It was completely empty. He crept around to the back: nothing. He repeated this with several more stalls. Nothing. He was prepared to leave the third to last stall on the left when he saw, peeking out of a bale of hay in the corner, a black crescent that looked rather like the toe of a boot.
Swiftly he reached down into the hay and grabbed the boy’s arm. Benjamin shook himself free of the hay and blinked at Arthur.
“I’d prefer not to have to use this,” Arthur said, raising his pistol with the hand that was not clutching Benjamin’s elbow.
“Who are you?” the boy, who was not more than fourteen, whined. Arthur lowered the pistol.
“I’m a friend of Herr Graybeard’s,” he explained. “I want to know where he is.”
“I can’t tell you-ow!” he cried, as Arthur gripped his arm harder.
“If you tell me, and if you don’t lie or tell anyone else who’s been asking, I promise you, I can give you a reward much bigger than any he’s ever given you. Because unlike Herr Graybeard, money means very little to me, and I have no qualms about being generous.”
“All right. I swear, I really, really don’t know where he is now, though.”
“But you know where he might be.” Arthur loosened his grip a bit.
The boy nodded fearfully. “He’s got three houses that I know of. One’s in the Latin Quarter, that’s where he goes when he has to really lay low, I think. One’s by the Imperial Gardens, and that’s where he goes whenever he’s trying to entertain a mistress, it’s by all the parties and dress shops-“
A mistress. There had been a woman with Fischer at the masked ball.
“--And one other one, on the outskirts of town, near Hermanstrasse. Not sure what that one’s for. But I think he keeps most of his money there, ‘cause there are always people going there with bags.”
I know where he is.
“Have you seen him with his mask off?” Arthur asked.
Benjamin thought for a moment. “Once,” he said. “He’s an old man. He’s losing his hair, and he’s got a big nose, and his face is pock-marked.”
“Benjamin,” Arthur said, slipping a twenty-florin piece into his hand, “you have been immensely helpful.”
§
“I must admit, I’m somewhat confused, Herr Hahnemann,” Browning said, sipping his tea. “You are accusing Herr Fischer of being a criminal based on hearsay. I hope you know me well enough to know that I do not like my time being wasted.”
“I am not wasting your time,” Arthur argued. “The boy’s description of Graybeard matched Fischer’s perfectly.”
“There are a lot of older men with larger noses and pock-marked faces,” Browning laughed. “Perhaps I even fit that description. Are you ready to accuse me of theft and murder?”
“But Your Excellency, I have heard both their voices, and they sounded exactly the same.”
Browning stood up. “I am sorry, Herr Hahnemann,” he said. “I am truly sorry that your dear Herr Eames is in danger, and I know that you wish to do something to protect him, but do you really think that you alone will be able to do what our city’s entire constabulary has been unable to do for all these years? Fischer is an upstanding man. Please, do not trouble yourself about this any more.”
Arthur glanced back at Browning as he exited the meeting room. He was disappointed. He had always considered Browning an impartial judge of character, and he wondered why a man who was so willing to spend so much time analyzing the drinking habits of a court composer would so readily dismiss an accusation of such gravity from a man he allegedly trusted.
He went home; he had been spending less and less time in his quarters at the palace. It was late afternoon. He sat on the couch and tried to relax with a heavy volume of poetry.
It was ridiculous to think that the couch might still smell like Eames. He stretched out, turning his face into one of the pillows in defiance of that sweet, musky, lingering scent.
“It isn’t good to sulk, you know.” Christina stood in the door, rubbing a cloth over the head of a porcelain figurine.
“’M’not sulking,” he groaned, and propped himself up against the couch’s arm.
“There’s news from Riesland,” she said. “I heard it at the market. The gentry has revolted. They hanged the Queen Regent and all her advisors, and now there’s fighting in the streets.”
Arthur’s eyes shot open. “Have you heard any more?”
Christina shook her head. She looked worried. “I do hope nothing like that could happen here.”
Arthur smiled. “I don’t think it would.” He fingered the tassel on a pillow absently.
“Sir, is there anything I can do for you?” she asked. “I have been practicing my recitation-would you like me to read something to you?”
He nodded, and Christina went off to fetch a book from the adjoining room.
Christina had a talent for acting, and when Eames had stayed with them they had sometimes stayed up until after midnight reading plays aloud. The play she chose to read now, from a gilt-edged red leather volume, was a tragedy by the Rieslandish playwright Belliveau, the story of two inseparable friends torn apart by jealousy and misunderstanding. Now she did each of the parts in a different voice-a maiden’s voice high and lilting, a priest’s voice booming and sonorous, a strong young man’s voice deep and soft. Arthur wondered if he were imagining things, but he could have sworn that she lent one of the friend’s voices a faint Albionorian accent.
Her delivery was riveting, but Arthur was exhausted. The room became formless, and he finally allowed himself to sink into the cushions as sleep scooped out all the life in his body like a trawling net. His dreams were shallow and transparent. Usually they were sprawling, full of people and words and infinite passageways and rooms, as if their worlds had been created by hundreds of masons and gardeners and architects together long before he entered them. But this dream felt like a rough draft, a long, dusty figure splashed starkly across a void. Although he could only see parts of the figure at a time-a shoulder, a wrist, a lock of tangled hair-he knew well who it was, and he tried to reach out to him.
Forgive me, he tried to say. If you are the voice of judgment, I deserve the sentence.
Eames disappeared into a smothering fog, and Arthur was alone. Or he thought he was alone. He became aware of the heat of bodies behind him, of silent, faceless men. When they reached out, their dark robes fell down their arms and he saw that their long skeletal fingers did not end but dissolved into mist. They pushed him down onto his knees. He strained to open his eyes, but he was paralyzed.
Before him was a block of wood with a groove in it. A groove the width of a human neck. He felt a hand on the back of his head, an almost gentle hand, and it guided his head down; from there he knew what he was supposed to do. Meekly, he lowered his neck into the groove and waited. The blade came down with a smack.
Arthur opened his eyes and sat up, reacquainting himself with the light and the steady rhythm of his heart. The smacking sounds continued.
“Sir!” Anton called from outside, banging on the door. “I have urgent matters to discuss with you!”
Arthur sprang to his feet. “Come in.”
Anton looked perturbed, and when Arthur looked at him a second time he noticed that he was clutching his arm and that blood was reddening his sleeve.
“Dear Lord, what’s happened to you?” Arthur cried. “Christina?”
“I’m already fetching supplies,” she called breathlessly from the kitchen.
“Sir,” Anton began, “I was polishing your boots upstairs when I heard a loud noise. I went into the study to investigate, and there was a strange man in there. He drew his sword, and I drew mine, and luckily I was able to wound him badly enough that he could no longer fight. He’s lost quite a bit of blood, and although he was able to escape, I am sorry to say I am not sure he is alive.”
One of Fischer’s men, no doubt, Arthur thought. Thank God I taught Anton to duel.
“Can you tell me anything about him?”
“He was well-trained in swordfighting,” Anton replied. “He didn’t look or fight like a ruffian. And his blade was exceedingly well-made.”
Arthur tapped his fingers against his lips. “What did the blade look like?”
“It was-I didn’t get much of a chance to look at it, but I could have sworn that there were red stones, rubies perhaps, on the handle.”
Arthur’s breath caught in his throat.
“Are you absolutely sure about that?” he said. His voice cracked.
There were other possibilities, he thought. Perhaps the blade was stolen. Or forged.
But by all indications the man was a member of the Imperial Guard.
§
Arthur had learned the Emperor’s habits well. He knew that Saito valued solitude, and that there were times when he went riding or hunting alone. These times were not regular, and they certainly were not announced, but they often occurred when the Emperor was in a dark mood, and the troubles in Riesland cast a pall over everyone in the court. But Arthur also knew that the troubles in Riesland would make him far more cautious about his personal security. He would likely cling to his advisors. It would be hard to get so much as a note to him without it being examined. And who could he trust as a messenger?
There was only one person at the palace whom he trusted to be above corruption by greed or power-lust.
After Naomi had struggled through the last arpeggiated chords of an aubade by de Clerambault-all lesson long she had been distracted by the curtain-strained motes of light that signified the last of October’s warm days-Arthur slipped her a tiny piece of paper.
“I’d like to talk to your father,” he whispered, watching a coat-tail flash by outside the door. “And I’d prefer to see him alone.”
“Papa doesn’t like to see anyone alone these days,” she said. “He says it’s hard to trust people.”
“Your father is a wise man,” Arthur said, trying to lower his voice as much as he could. “But this is exactly why I need to speak with him alone. There is great danger to him.”
Naomi’s lip began to tremble. “I will tell him.”
§
Arthur had already agreed to be stripped down and inspected for weapons. Now they were riding through a forest populated by immense pines; only the thinnest splinters of light pierced through the moist darkness. The deft horses wove around the trees; their heavy footsteps on the crackling needles released surges of fragrance, a scent that always reminded Arthur of his father staggering home with bundles of wood that he’d coax into the shapes of cradles or chairs.
“We should ride a little farther away from the guards,” Arthur suggested. Saito looked at him suspiciously, but he dug his heels into the glossy black horse’s flanks.
When they came to a clearing, Arthur dismounted. Saito did the same.
“You have two minutes, Herr Hahnemann,” Saito warned.
Arthur took a deep breath and tried to compose his thoughts. He was about to accuse the Emperor’s most trusted official. If he was proven wrong, Arthur himself could be suspected of of sedition, of treason. But Arthur’s instinct told him beyond a doubt that Browning was colluding with Fischer. And that, therefore, exposing Browning would mean exposing Fischer for what he actually was. Otherwise the merchant would go on enjoying the protection of all those with the power to arrest him. And Eames…Arthur tried to push all those thoughts from his head.
“Your Highness,” Arthur began, his tongue feeling like fast-drying clay, “I have reason to believe that the Chancellor is not who he appears to be.”
Saito’s brow furrowed. “In what sense?”
Arthur stepped cautiously closer. He turned and saw vermillion shapes cut through eclipsing green cover; the guards were breaching the forest wall.
“I had evidence that the merchant Maurice Fischer is actually a criminal, by the name of Graybeard.” Saito’s face perked in recognition. “I heard his voice at a ball, threatening a friend. Then Fischer’s son told me the truth about Graybeard, and then I began to think back on my encounters with Fischer. His voice sounded exactly the same. A boy who claimed he saw Graybeard without his mask on described him, and he sounds like Fischer.”
“And what does Browning have to do with this?” Saito asked.
Arthur cleared his throat. “I met with Browning to tell him what I’d heard. Browning dismissed it. That night, a man broke into my home, presumably with intent to kill me. My manservant fought him off, but he saw that the intruder used the blade of an Imperial Guard.”
“This is circumstantial evidence, Herr Hahnemann,” Saito accused. “And you have reasons for wanting Browning out of his office, do you not? He stood in the way of your receiving the position of Kapellmeister.”
“I did not desire the position of Kapellmeister, Your Worship,” Arthur said earnestly. “Herr Browning has always been a supporter of my music, and until now, I have always had the utmost respect and trust for him. But I believe that he tried to have me killed because I discovered the truth. And I believe that he is a danger to your court, and possibly to you.”
Saito looked ready to open his mouth to cut Arthur’s speech off.
“And-and, Your Worship-I heard Fisc-Graybeard-promising to put an end to Eames’s life. If you do not act, the greatest musical mind of our time will be snuffed out as if he were no more significant than a rat. I may be wrong, but you must at least try to cut off this corruption at its roots. Expose Browning, and you will expose Fischer.”
The guards were approaching. Saito halted them with a hand.
“And what do you suggest I do about this, Herr Hahnemann?”
“I think,” Arthur said softly, “that there might be a way to catch him.”
§
“I have no idea how to catch him,” Arthur moaned, head in his hands, elbows resting on Yusuf’s table. Ariadne waved a forkful of spiced apples under his nose, but he grunted and rested his forehead on the tablecloth.
“What is the relationship between Browning and Fischer anyway?” Yusuf asked.
“The way Robert, his son, explained it to me, Fischer’s wealthy patrons offer him protection in exchange for money and luxury goods. And they allow him to maintain his monopoly on trade in the city.”
“Trade.” Ariadne interjected. “Can we lure Browning out with the promise of goods? That’s what he’s after, isn’t it?”
“I presume so,” said Arthur. “But he’ll be suspicious if someone promises him money-we don’t know how their interactions work, and how much of a cut he gets from Fischer.”
Yusuf held his fork in a loose fist and tapped its end on the table, the way he often did with a pencil when he was thinking. “What if we have Fischer ask him for a favor?”
“What do you mean?” Arthur said.
“Well, as chancellor, Browning has access to certain things at the palace. Things that Fischer might very well want to own or to sell. What black market trader wouldn’t want to get his hands on-“
“The Golden Mollusk!” Ariadne interjected, nearly leaping out of her seat. “Send Browning a forged note from Graybeard asking him to acquire the golden mollusk. Then, if Browning’s really working for him, he’ll bring it to a dropoff location.”
Arthur chewed his lip. “But how’s that going to prove anything? Who’s going to see all of this happen?”
“Well,” said Yusuf, “the Emperor himself would have to see it, if he’s going to believe it.”
“And where? Browning’s not going to be foolish enough to conduct illicit business in the palace or anywhere he can be seen. We need somewhere that’s private enough to inspire confidence, but public enough where people can hide and listen.”
“The Hedge Maze,” stated Ariadne.
“You are brilliant,” Yusuf said, beaming at her. “The Hedge Maze would be perfect. You get him to meet his contact in there. Then, you’re hiding on the other side of wherever he is, and you can hear everything. The Emperor can even hide guards in there. And when he gives himself away, you can pounce on him.”
Ariadne had grabbed a notebook and a quill and was drawing a map of the hedge maze, hurriedly and crookedly, but with perfect accuracy. I’ve walked this maze so many times I know every twist and turn. Here.” She touched the quill to the paper and the ink bled out in a thick circle. “There’s a hidden chamber in here. It looks like solid foliage, but there’s actually a door you can walk through. I only came upon it by accident.”
“You think he’s going to fall for this?” Arthur asked skeptically.
“He may not,” said Yusuf. “But it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
Arthur nodded reluctantly.
“Is Eames here?” he asked after a few moments of silence.
“I’m not sure,” Yusuf answered. “You can go upstairs and see, if you like.”
Arthur folded up his napkin. He walked through the parlor and up the stairs, treading as soundlessly as possible. The room where Eames was staying was dark and cold. Arthur stepped up to the bed and ran his fingertips over the covers; the bed was flat. He walked around to the other side to pull the curtains open, and when light flooded the room he took note of a long, looped piece of leather poking out from under the bed. He gave it a tug. It was attached to a bag, a heavy one judging by the resistance it gave. Inside the bag was the glint of metal. Arthur reached into it and pulled out a silver candlestick studded with opal and citrine. Reduced to stealing from his students’ parents to pay off his debts, Arthur thought, his heart flooding with sadness like a cracked barrel.
Oh, Eames.
§
The plan was in place.
Arthur had convinced Robert to forge a note in his father’s handwriting, asking Browning to meet Fischer’s messenger in the hedge maze at nine o’clock with the golden mollusk in hand.
He had convinced Benjamin to play the role of Fischer’s messenger, a role the boy knew well. If any more was needed to persuade Browning to appear at the meeting spot, Benjamin was prepared to explain that the current upheaval in Riesland and the subduing of its royalty had put Rieslandish goods at a premium. It was certain to fetch a prettier florin now than before, even when it had been the perplexed and amused talk of all Marchia.
He had convinced Saito to accompany him, in the garb of a beggar, to the hedge maze with his two most trusted guards.
All that was left to do was to convince Browning to appear at the hedge maze. If all went well, if Benjamin actually could be trusted to find Browning in town and show him the proper dead end, if the note appeared authentic, then Arthur should be hearing the sound of footsteps at any time. But there was no sign of Browning. He could hear Benjamin muttering to himself on the other side of the wall as Arthur pressed his ear to the door.
Finally, when he had begun to despair, Arthur heard the sound of heavy footsteps. It was apparent that there was more than one person with Browning.
“We should probably inspect this maze first,” an unfamiliar man’s voice said from a distance. “Make sure we’re completely alone. You wait here, boy.”
Arthur closed his his eyes. He heard the voice becoming louder and clearer as he neared the hidden chamber; then the footsteps died away.
The footsteps became louder again.
“Looks like it isn’t a trap then,” Browning said. “And if someone’s trying to box us in here, the others outside will take care of it.” He doesn’t know about the hidden chamber. Arthur released the breath he’d been holding.
Then Benjamin began to speak.
“Have you brought the goods, Your Excellency?” There was silence.
Finally Browning spoke. “No, boy, I have not brought the goods. And do you know why?”
“Why?” Benjamin asked.
“Because this little note of yours?” There was the sound of paper rustling. “It’s quite obviously a fake. Herr Fischer’s penmanship has deteriorated noticeably with age. This is his handwriting from ten years ago. I don’t know who you’re working for, but it isn’t any friend of mine.” Browning laughed. “Heinrich, make this boy talk.” Arthur heard the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked, and he squeezed his eyes shut.
“Wait.” Saito pushed the door open, and Arthur held up a lantern that illuminated the shock on Browning’s face.
Browning raised his hands and let his pistol clatter to the soft ground.
§
“I can’t believe you managed it.” Ariadne squeezed Arthur’s hands.
“I did so little,” he said, sheepishly meeting her eyes.
“But you knew it was possible.”
They strolled along past the market stalls at midday. Arthur tried to resist the temptations of Turkish taffy and candy glass while Ariadne picked up a strand of coral beads to admire them.
“You know, you can afford to buy those now,” he mentioned. She turned to look at him, wide-eyed. He smiled softly.
“I insisted that he allow Fischer’s son to take control of the company, and that he allow him to keep much of the money in Fischer’s coffers. Most of it has been returned to the ones from whom it was stolen. But I also received a percentage which I thought it would only be right to share with you and Yusuf.”
“Why do you care so much about Fischer’s son? Oh,” she said knowingly, taking note of his downcast glance. “You do a lot of things out of guilt, don’t you, Arthur.” She let the beads fall between her fingers.
He drifted towards a stand where a woman was selling trays of rosewater candy. “No more than most people, I suppose.” He handed the woman five florins and wrapped his mouth around the small pink square. It was a good excuse not to continue the conversation.
§
The Royal Hall was bustling. Fans snapped open like the whirring click of night insects. Shoes clicked and fabric rustled. Arthur looked out over the foamy sea of wigs and prayed no one was looking back at him. It was a foolish hope.
He was surprised to see such a crowd. But the Purgatorio had given Arthur his reputation. It was the only piece with Arthur’s name attached to it that deserved to be called genius. As the seats became packed with people in stiff, shimmering clothes, Arthur tried to keep his back pressed to the stage walls, listening to the orchestra tune their instruments. He didn’t want to be congratulated.
He surveyed the audience. So many of the faces beneath the gold-ribbed dome of the opera house were as indistinct as loaves of bread. Herr Miles sat in the front row, next to the Emperor and Empress. He recognized friends and acquaintances and court officials and pretended he didn’t recognize them at all.
Then he caught sight of gleaming pink lips pressed together, and eyes which managed to give off an engaged intensity despite the difficulty of telling exactly where they were looking. Eames often seemed to be watching something no one else could see. Or he could do two things at once: he could look at a person as though they the only human thing that mattered, but then there would always be some angel or demon begging for his attention, poking out from a place between the strands of ether that existed only for a man whose vision could stop time and part space. Arthur looked away.
He had hoped that she wasn’t in the audience. But of course she was, sitting silently, almost unblinking, her black mantilla draped over her head. Tonight she would have her full power. He’d almost forgotten about her while he was chasing Fischer, despite her presence at every rehearsal of the Purgatorio; his mind was focused on his goal, on his fear of letting Eames slip away. But now he’d returned to his ordinary life, where he was expected to be the composer that he was not.
When the lights dimmed and he raised his hands to usher forward the slow, crawling whine of the violin, the wail of the dusty-handed soul doomed to crawl upwards without progress, he could feel her eyes on his back. Demanding him to break his silence. His arms seemed to fill with lead. It was grueling to raise them, and he wondered what would happen if he simply let them drop, let his head hang down. Let himself fall to the floor. If it is the belief that one deserves to live that keeps us upright, he thought, it is a wonder that I have stood all this time.
Glorious as it was, he barely heard the music as he conducted. He had done it so many times before, by rote, barely present in his own skin.
The final movement drew to its anxious close, the violin like a being at last outpacing its hornet tormentors, but without joy. Arthur let his arms fall and imagined the applause like a wave that was drowning him. It didn’t help. It still sounded like cheering.
“Please,” he vaguely heard himself say, muffled by all of the clapping. “Please.”
When he held up his hands, they finally fell silent.
It was so difficult to breathe at that moment that Arthur wondered how it had been so easy all of his life. His knees trembled. But he had to say it. It was no use keeping it a secret if someone already knew. A secret revealed to one is a secret no more, as the saying went.
“You should not be clapping for me,” he choked out. It felt like retching. “I did not write the Purgatorio.”
The crowd remained in their shocked silence.
“The piece was written by a woman I knew well. Her name-“ He looked for the woman in the crowd, as though she were actually the person she was pretending to be. “Her name was Mallorie Cobb.” He did not have the strength to turn around to see her husband’s reaction. “She was a composer, and a far better one than I. I am not even worthy of that name. But because of her sex, no one took her seriously. So we agreed that I would take credit for the Purgatorio, because she only wanted to see it performed. It was an enormous success, as you know. And then, then-“ Arthur put his hand to his mouth, dreading what came next-“she asked me if I would tell the world who the work’s true author was. I promised her I would. And I never did. I was so enamored of the money and the praise and the illustrious company and I could not bring myself to give it up. And then…then she died before I could make it right.”
The concert hall swam before him. The people whose faces he could focus on briefly wore looks of confusion and horror.
“I hereby resign from my post as court composer. I am not worthy to stand before any of you. May God keep you all.”
Arthur was running before anyone could chase him, could jeer at him.
He ran through the corridor backstage and out into the frigid open air. He had left his overcoat in the dressing room, and his jacket was not warm enough to prevent the cold from seeping under his sleeves. He was frozen in place, caught between the backs of two buildings on a sunken cobblestone road. Should he go home? Should he go to an inn where no one knew him? He did not want to face his own servants. He wanted to be in a carriage shivering along down a bumpy road, headed for a farm where he could live out the rest of his days chopping wood and pulling up turnips.
“Arthur.”
At the sound of his name he turned around slowly. The darkness was near-total, but he knew the voice. Of course he knew the voice. It had resounded in his head every night as he tried to fall asleep.
“Leave me alone,” he muttered. “You’ve done your good deed, exposed me as a fraud. Forgive me if I don’t feel like offering you my thanks right now.”
“Arthur, I don’t know what you’re talking about-“ Eames called after him, but Arthur realized at that moment that it was not necessary to choose the perfect direction. It was only necessary to escape. He ran, blood percussive in his ears, down the deserted city streets. No one followed.
Part 4