Prussian counterpoint, p.1
Prussian Counterpoint, page 1
Prussian Counterpoint
A Joseph Haydn Mystery
Nupur Tustin
Foiled Plots Press
Prussian Counterpoint
A Joseph Haydn Mystery
Foiled Plots Press
Copyright © 2019 Nupur Tustin
Cover Design by Karen Phillips
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 978-0-9982430-5-4
e-book formatting by bookow.com
Acknowledgments
In the writing of this, the third Haydn Mystery, I’ve relied upon a number of people whose generous support made my work far easier than I expected it to be.
Solveigh Rumpf-Dorner of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek never fails to be available when I have a question about Haydn and his times. She is a resource I can count on.
Marlies Sell of the Stadt-und Landesbibliothek in Potsdam helped to clarify questions about the city in the time of Frederick the Great.
Mark Brownlow, who hosts the Visiting Vienna website, shared innumerable resources on sleigh rides in Vienna and the races that both the nobility and commoners held in Haydn’s time.
Miriam Posner helped me access articles on espionage, in particular Nadine Akkerman’s research on the subject, from the UCLA library.
Fellow writer Jane Gorman helped with a crucial decision on the manuscript when I was at a crossroads.
Historians Tim Blanning and Giles MacDonogh were kind enough to provide detailed answers to questions I had about Frederick the Great. Their biographies of the King were an invaluable resource for this novel.
Richard Gibson of Ted Gibson Frames Inc. in Los Angeles generously spent hours with my husband and me, showing us eighteenth-century frames and explaining the way they were manufactured.
Last but most certainly not least, Professor Gerhard Strasser of Penn State University was infinitely generous with both his time and his expertise. Our prolonged correspondence over the summer of 2018 facilitated my understanding of espionage techniques, in particular of steganography.
Without that understanding, a large part of this novel simply could not have been written.
But research is not the only area where a novelist needs help. I’d also like to thank friend and author K.B. Inglee for introducing my novels to her local radio station, WRTI. Radio host Bliss Michelson was kind enough to mention the Haydn Mysteries to his listeners. I am grateful for that.
But it is to my husband, Matt, that I owe the biggest debt of gratitude. Your support and strength have made my life as a mystery writer possible. I love you deeply and forever.
ALSO BY NUPUR TUSTIN
JOSEPH HAYDN MYSTERIES
A Minor Deception
Aria to Death
Prussian Counterpoint
CELINE SKYE PSYCHIC MYSTERIES
Visions of Murder: Prequel
Master of Illusion
Forger of Death
ANTHOLOGIES
Murder in Vienna: A FREE Joseph Haydn Mystery
Murder in the Sun: A FREE Women Sleuths Mystery
The Baker’s Boy: A Young Haydn Mystery
In Day of the Dark, Edited by Kaye George
The Christmas Stalker
In Shhh. . .Murder!, Edited by Andrew MacRae
FREE Mysteries Available from NTUSTIN.COM
Table of Contents
Overture
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Author’s Note: Freedom’s Death Knell
Introducing Celine Skye
About the Author
Overture
The letter filled her with more foreboding than she cared to admit. It had been months since she had recovered from the smallpox that had nearly killed her, but she still felt its effects. Unable to walk more than a few paces before falling into a chair in fatigue. So short of breath, the windows of her apartment were kept open even in the winter.
The thought of facing another intrigue made her chest constrict, as though an iron fist had closed around her lungs, preventing her from taking another breath. She fell back against her pillows and closed her eyes.
What did Frederick want from her now? Most of Silesia was his. It had been by the skin of her teeth that she had saved the Empire for her Francis. And now, Joseph, her son, was Holy Roman Emperor; his brother Leopold’s son to follow after him, God be willing.
She had at least thwarted Frederick in that ambition. The thought made her smile. A gust of the icy Vienna air blew in through the open window, wrapping itself around her neck. It was deathly chill and oddly pleasant against her skin.
What did Frederick want? She would be a fool to think he was content with possessing Silesia. He had set his sights on Poland, but would that be enough to sate his monstrous appetite?
He will never rest until Austria is destroyed. Or the Empire his.
She opened her eyes, glancing down at the letter again. It appeared to be a friendly overture to bury the hatchet.
“Together Austria and Prussia can lead the world,” the King had written. “England squabbles with France, bringing havoc to Europe. Russia is grown drunken with her might. What hope of peace unless we Germans stand together?”
And that peace, she supposed, would come from dividing Poland. He must think her as greedy as himself if he thought she would agree to such a despicable scheme.
“If it will avoid war, my dear,” she heard her dead Francis whisper in her ear.
“But sometimes war cannot be avoided, Franz,” she argued. “If I had turned away from it all those years ago, the Empire would have been lost. Frederick wanted Silesia—”
“He owns the better part of it now, my sweet. The war brought us little enough.”
“It kept the Empire in our hands, Franz.” The Empress brought her fist fiercely down upon her bedside table. “We would have lost it all, had I acquiesced to Frederick’s demands then.” It was what Franz had counseled. She had disregarded his words, unwilling to yield even an inch of the lands she had so recently inherited.
But her appetite for war was long gone. She had been a young woman in 1740—a mother, barely twenty-three, ready and willing to take on the reins of power. She longed to relinquish them now.
It was her un-womanly interest in affairs of state that had, she was certain, driven Francis to other women. She had sent Charles, her brother-in-law, to the field while his wife—her sister— awaited his firstborn child. Neither mother nor child had survived, and guilt inextricably coupled with grief had pushed Charles into the grave.
All of this, she had survived, suppressing her grief. It had been one thing to lose a sister and a brother-in-law. One thing to see her beloved Franz dally with other women. A war now would send all her sons to the battlefield. It was not a gamble she could afford.
She perused the letter again. There could, she supposed, be no harm in traveling to Potsdam. The cold north air might bring her lungs some relief.
“And you may be able to talk him out of his devilish scheme to carve up Poland as though it were little more than a leg of lamb,” her husband’s spirit reminded her.
This time she nodded. There was only so much letters and envoys could achieve. Who knew, but a meeting in person might not serve her purpose better. “Not that I will mention it to either Joseph or Kaunitz. Joseph is as keen to ride into the battlefield as Frederick himself. And the chancellor does little to discourage him.”
A more innocuous explanation for her decision to go would have to be supplied. Easily enough accomplished since the King himself had furnished a plausible reason.
Yet her sense of foreboding remained. The King’s second request was so unaccountable, it puzzled her no end. What could he mean by it?
Chapter One
“Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach,” the Empress said, her eyes riveted upon the gold-embossed letter in her hand. “You are acquainted with him?”
Her voice recalled Kapellmeister Joseph Haydn’s attention from the gardens outside, blanketed in sno w, to the small study where he sat opposite Her Majesty, Empress Maria Theresa. The lush bounty of leaves, melons, and pomegranates painted on the walls by Johann Wenzel Bergl’s hands formed a startling contrast to the bleakness without.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach—C.P.E. Bach? The name had dropped like a bolt of lightning from Her Majesty’s mouth. What could she possibly want with Herr Bach? Had Her Majesty received a letter from the great Bach himself?
Haydn straightened up in his chair, waiting for the explanation that must surely follow.
But none was forthcoming. The Empress raised her head and glanced across the table at him. Her blue eyes, still sharp despite her age and her recent bout with illness, regarded the Kapellmeister closely, awaiting his reply.
“Only with his music,” he replied, unable to conceal his surprise. Surely an enquiry into his associations was not so pressing as to require his presence in Her Majesty’s apartment.
The coachman she had sent to the Esterházy Palace on Wallnerstrasse had urged such haste, Haydn had hurried out without so much as a word to his employer, His Serene Highness, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy.
That task was left to Luigi Tomasini, Haydn’s Konzertmeister. Haydn had only just remembered his wool coat, his gloves remaining forgotten on the hallway table at the Esterházy Palace.
The Empress nodded, dipping the edge of her toast into her soft-cooked egg. “I did not think you were, but it is such a small matter, I would not have thought it worth the lie.” She returned her gaze to the letter.
“We have corresponded,” Haydn hastened to add, unwilling to allow Her Majesty to think so ill of a composer he himself held in such great esteem. The letter in her hands must be from Herr Bach. If only the composer had apprised Haydn of his application to the Empress.
Haydn dipped his own spoon reluctantly into his silver egg cup. He had never seen the point of soft-cooked eggs.
Why trouble with cooking an egg at all if one were going to leave it almost entirely uncooked? But the Empress had insisted on serving it to him. The white, at least, was set firm. He sprinkled some salt on it and brought the spoon to his mouth.
“I have not, however, had the fortune of meeting him in person,” he continued once he had swallowed the morsel.
Why had Herr Bach lied about such a trivial detail? It was a fact easily put to the test and was hardly likely to win him a position at the Habsburg Court. Haydn rubbed his frozen hands together. The long drive to Schönbrunn had chilled his fingers to the bone. And although he sat by the fire, they still felt numb.
“If Your Majesty wishes to hire him, I can recommend no one more suited for the position or more capable. As a performer, he is incomparable. As an educator, few could be more gifted or learned— ”
“He has apparently expressed a strong desire to meet you, Haydn.” The Empress raised her eyes again, her pale blue irises fastening themselves upon the Kapellmeister.
“He will be visiting Vienna?” Why had Herr Bach not mentioned the matter to him?
“No, Haydn, it is the King of Prussia who requests your presence in his court.”
Ach so! The letter was from the King, then. Haydn’s eyes followed the movement of the thick, creamy sheet of paper as the imperial hand that held it swept the air.
“At the urging apparently,” the Empress went on, “of a keyboardist he thinks so little of, the poor man receives barely three hundred thalers a year.”
Haydn’s eyes widened despite himself. Few musicians cared to seek a position in Prussia, it was so well known the King thought little of anyone other than Friedrich Agricola and Joachim Quantz. But Haydn had not thought Her Majesty was privy to these details.
“I have my sources,” she explained, her pale lips stretching into a smile. “It is unlikely, I suppose, that Bach would have made such an appeal.”
Haydn considered the question. “Not quite as unlikely as the fact that the King heeded it,” he replied. “I cannot think what His Majesty would want with me. It cannot be for my music. He thinks it is just so much noise.”
It was not an opinion that offended him. A man who failed to appreciate Herr Bach could hardly be expected to enjoy his work.
But why should Herr Bach need the King’s permission to meet him? Haydn could have traveled to Potsdam, if His Serene Highness allowed it. Such a thing was not altogether unlikely. Was Herr Bach himself unable to leave Prussia?
The question filled Haydn with misgiving. If that were the case, it could only mean one thing. Herr Bach was in trouble.
“The request comes, you said, from Herr Bach, Your Majesty?”
“It is what the King says, Haydn.” The Empress waved the letter through the air again. “But he habitually weaves such a web of deceit, one can never be sure of anything.” She sighed. “Perhaps, he merely means to be polite. Although I am inclined to think there is a more sinister motive behind his request.”
“Polite?” Haydn enquired. What need did the King have to be polite to a mere musician?
“He has invited me to Potsdam—a gesture of friendship, he says—in order that the Prince of Condé and I may bring our marriage negotiations to a conclusion on neutral grounds.”
Haydn nodded, well aware of Her Majesty’s efforts to wed Archduchess Maria Antonia to the French Dauphin. The Empress went on.
“He would, of course, profit from seeming to facilitate the alliance.
“But,” Her Majesty paused, suddenly breathless. She gripped her chair, chest expanding, as she drew several deep drafts of air. “I very much fear, the gauntlet is being thrown at us, Haydn. I only wish I knew why King Frederick seeks to involve you.”
Rosalie Szabó allowed Gerhard to sweep her roughly into his arms. “Take care of yourself, lass,” he said, clasping her so close to his chest, she could hardly breathe. “And do not forget you are now an engaged woman.”
“I won’t,” Rosalie promised. How could she, when he never gave her an opportunity to do so?
She watched him climb onto his rack-wagon and maneuver it out of the Haarhof, the narrow alley on which the wine cellar for the Esterházy Palace, where she worked, was located. There had been no wine deliveries to make. Gerhard had simply come to see her.
To check on her, the palace maid corrected herself. If only he could bring himself to trust her a little more. But Gerhard Heindl, the tavern-keeper from Kleinhöflein, seemed perpetually afraid Rosalie would betray him the way Marlene, his first fiancée, had done.
If Rosalie so much as glanced at another man, Gerhard read her a lecture on the impropriety of her behavior. At first she had secretly reveled in the jealousy he betrayed, seeing it as a sign he was over his infatuation with Marlene. But now. . .
She sighed. It was more than any woman could be expected to bear. She fidgeted with the gold band on her finger. Sometimes the urge to take it off was simply irresistible.
And unaccountable. Gerhard was a good man. And she, the most fortunate woman in Austria, as Mama never failed to remind her.
“Not ready to be tied to one man, are you?” A low, throaty voice jogged Rosalie out of her thoughts.
A woman clad in muted tones, almost entirely covered in a deep indigo cloak, stood by her side. Her lips wore an amused smile; her dark blue eyes had an air of knowing that seemed out of place in one so humbly dressed. She tipped her chin at Rosalie’s ring.
“A little soap will ease it off, and for a few hours you may be free of him.”
“I don’t wish to be free of him,” Rosalie said, resenting the woman’s too-ready assumptions about her feelings.
“No?” The woman’s smile widened. “I must have been mistaken, then.”
Her gesture and tone infuriated Rosalie. “Yes, you were.” she swiveled around.
“Wait!” The woman’s fingers gently touched Rosalie’s arm. “I did not mean to offend you—”
“What is it you want?” Rosalie snapped. “If it is a position at the palace, there is none to be had at the moment.”
“I merely wish to speak with Herr Haydn. Is he within?” The wind, icy in the gray morning, swept the hood off her head, revealing a broad forehead and lustrous, corn-colored hair. She pulled it back up with a quick glance around the alley.
