Masks and Shadows (40 page)

Anna didn't want to watch the exchange, but she couldn't look away. The sounds of the storm in the overture intensified as Herr Pichler slipped the note into his pocket.

Stupid
. She'd offered him her help in every way she could, and all he'd done was humiliate her in public. Well, she had learned her lesson at last. She wouldn't feel sorry for him anymore, and she wouldn't try to save him from his problems. She needed all her energy now for herself, to give the best possible performance tonight. To win herself a future.

Still, when Herr Pichler came to stand beside her, waiting to step onstage, she hesitated.

By all rights, she ought to ignore him—or say something as horrid as what he had said to her earlier, to repay him. But when she looked at the shadows beneath his eyes and the hunched, defensive set of his shoulders, she couldn't do it.

Instead, she whispered, “Be careful.”

His eyes widened. “I will,” he whispered back, without looking at her.

The overture drew to a close. Flutes and strings signaled the morning, and Herr Pichler's cue.

He gave her the fraction of a nod and stepped onstage.

Chapter Thirty

A storm broke through the orchestra. Shuddering strings and percussion charted its progress. From his seat at the harpsichord, Herr Haydn nodded firmly to the horns. They entered, building tension, building—

Carlo frowned, shaken out of the music of the overture. From his seat by the closed door of the royal box, he'd heard unexpected movement outside. Footsteps—and the unmistakable tap of a walking stick.

After making his bows to their Majesties, Herr von Born had excused himself to find a seat in the auditorium below. What was he thinking now, to be pacing around the royal box in midperformance?

The storm in the music peaked and faded. Whispering flutes and oboes replaced the chaos, mimicking the calls of birds. Carlo shook off the irritating mystery and returned his attention to the stage as the curtains drew apart to reveal an island scene.

Even as the lead tenor stepped out and began to sing, though, Carlo could not rid himself of the sensation of lingering unease.

The first scene went well, Franz thought. He sang his opening recitative loudly and clearly, aiming it straight at the royal box. Illuminated by the hot beams of the spirit lamps in the wings, he knew he made a striking figure. He sang of his character's bewilderment at the strange island the storm had washed him onto. As mechanical waves swayed behind him, he launched into his aria, commending himself to the love and trust of his long-missing beloved. He made the tune as soulful and as heartfelt as he possibly could. After all, it might well be his last performance.

The applause of the audience rewarded him at the end of the aria. He bowed deeply and strode offstage, ears ringing.

The ladies swept onstage as he left it, followed by Delacroix and the chorus. Franz collapsed against the wall, sweating, and glanced around. The few remaining men backstage stood in a small cluster at the far corner, throwing dice.

It was time.

As women's voices soared up in greeting to the new day, Franz reached into his pocket and withdrew the sealed note. It felt limp in his hand. He handled it as carefully as he would a viper.

He stared at it for a long moment. If he never opened it, he would never have to know . . .

But then he would not survive the night.

Franz broke open the seal.

As the ladies of the chorus finished their paean to the new day, the rest of the islanders ran in and swept into a festive dance, and Charlotte half-closed her eyes to appreciate the sheer beauty of the music. Bright colors swept across her narrowed vision. Then the lead soprano entered with a high, thrilling note, from the right of the stage, and the chorus silenced to give her full pride of place.

She was, of course, the tenor's long-lost beloved, first kidnapped by pirates and then washed up from a shipwreck onto this shore. Now, she had been taken in by the local count and was living as his ward, oppressed both by the pain of her lost love, and by the count's determined and unwelcome courtship. As her melancholy aria ended, she was swept unwillingly into the village's celebrations—and the lead tenor entered, from the other side of the stage, too far away to see her. He raised his voice in appeal. It should have soared across the orchestra and chorus. Instead, Charlotte could barely hear it. She blinked, and fully opened her eyes.

Something was terribly wrong with the lead tenor. Even through the haze of beauty that the music had spun around her, Charlotte could see it. As he continued to sing, Herr Pichler's voice was a pale shadow of its normal self. His actions were slow and sluggish; his face, a sickly white. Was he ill?

Charlotte glanced around the royal box. Signor Morelli frowned at the stage;
he
had noticed the change, certainly. The Emperor and Empress, in the row ahead of them, watched with every appearance of enjoyment. The Prince glared down at the audience below him . . . at Sophie. Charlotte looked past him, at the Princess—and stilled.

The Princess's face was rigid with tension. Her bejeweled hands had clenched into fists around the balcony's rail. She looked a veritable statue. Only her eyes moved, sweeping the audience—for what? Unease crawled up Charlotte's neck. Suddenly, the opera seemed far less compelling.

A flicker of motion in the audience caught Charlotte's attention. She leaned forward and saw her brother-in-law standing and slipping out through the auditorium doors.

Clearly, the opera wasn't holding his attention, either.

“It's time,” Friedrich whispered as he stood.

Sophie pouted, but she didn't move to stop him. The interminable music droned on and on as he slipped out of his seat and out of the auditorium. The corridor outside was dim, with only a single brace of candles burning. The servants hadn't arrived yet for the break between acts.

He walked up the corridor quickly, listening to the echoes of his boot-heels against the marble floor and clenching his jaw to hold back the voices. All the damned voices. The voices that would send him to Hell—
where he'd sent Anton
.

I had no choice
.

He pushed open the door to the backstage waiting area. Five or six singers looked up at the sound, then recognized him and looked away again, focused on their card game. For a moment, Friedrich was tempted to join them.

Then the singing onstage finished, amidst loud applause, and Friedrich leaned back against the wall to wait for the singer he'd met before, Franz Pichler, and the beginning of his final orders.

Anna hurried backstage as the chorus took over. She arrived just in time to catch Herr Pichler as he tripped.

“Careful!”

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Sorry . . .”

He was heavy in her arms for a moment, before he straightened and stepped away. Anna gasped when she saw his face.

“You're ill!” she whispered.

“No. I'm fine.”

He tried to move away, but she caught his arm.

“You look like death! What's happened to you?” She narrowed her eyes. “Was it—that letter?”

He let out a puff of air, not quite a laugh. “I . . . yes. The letter. But not just that.” He shook his head. “I've been a fool.”

“Tell me what's wrong.”

“It's too late.”

He glanced over her head. Lieutenant von Höllner stood propped against the back wall, watching them with grim intensity. Anna's stomach twisted.

“Is—is he involved as well?”

Herr Pichler's lips twisted. “You could say that.”

Monsieur Delacroix had been moving around the groups of singers, whispering orders. Now he stepped up beside Anna, pointedly ignoring Herr Pichler. “Orders from the Prince,” he hissed. “He has a surprise planned for his guests, and he wants the stage cleared immediately after the finale. No second round of bows. Singers and musicians are all to leave the building until summoned. All except for you, Pichler.” His lips curled. “No flowers for you yet, I'm afraid, Fräulein.”

Anna lifted her chin. “I don't desire them, monsieur.”

He snorted and walked away. Anna turned back to Herr Pichler. He'd looked ill before Delacroix's visit; now, he looked as though he might collapse.

“Tell me!” she whispered. “What's going on?”

Franz licked his lips. They were so dry, they cracked. Everything was cracking around him.

He couldn't stop making the calculations in his head. Two people, perhaps, he could have understood. Four people even. But there were four hundred people in the audience tonight. The two-pointed base of the pyramid's triangular side would be bounded by each end of the stage, and the figure would peak high above the royal box, where the Brotherhood's leader had stood, gazing down at him, through nearly all of the act so far. The pyramid would angle in from its base, leaving some innocents untouched, but still including . . . what? Two hundred and fifty people? Three hundred? As well as all the occupants of the royal box itself? It was beyond comprehension. Three hundred people to die because Franz had been angry and hurt and stupid, that night in his prison cell, and he had let himself be tricked.