SHEEP SKINS
count Procházka was . . . unexpected.
My mysterious benefactor was a rotund little man of indeterminate age. What little hair he had about his crown and side whiskers was a wiry gray, but his cheeks were rosy with the glow of youth and good humor. His waistcoat crinkled around his shiny brass buttons in much the same way his skin crinkled about his eyes when he smiled. Aside from the skull mask, his costume as Death seemed hastily put together, a black silk cloak thrown over what appeared to be ordinary apparel—a pale satin waistcoat, dark woolen jacket, dun-colored breeches, white stockings, black shoes with brass buckles glinting dully in the moonlight. A bloodred poppy was pinned to his lapel.
I hadn’t realized until that moment that I had had a certain impression of my host from the elegant and educated hand on the letter he had sent me, as well as the salacious stories I’d heard from Frau Messner and the ladies of Herr Schneider’s shop. I wasn’t entirely sure what I had been expecting—someone tall, beautiful, and languid, perhaps—but I certainly hadn’t thought my patron—the subject of so many misgivings and incendiary rumors—would be a cheerful little cockatiel of a man twittering about in Bohemian-accented German.
“Terribly sorry if I gave you a fright,” said the Count. “But your brother, your sister, and your friend were worried about your whereabouts, and when my wife told me you had come out to the gardens, I knew I had to come find you. Very few people have solved this labyrinth, you see.”
Indeed, my unexpected host was making his way confidently through the twists and turns of the hedge maze while I tripped and skipped in order to keep up.
“It was my grandmother’s idea,” the Count went on, carrying on his half of the conversation whether I responded or no. “The hedge maze, I mean. She had a mind for mathematics and puzzles, but they say the labyrinth follows no logic anyone can decipher.” He chuckled. “They say you must either be magical or mad in order to solve it.”
Magic. I remembered the path of poppies blooming before me in the dark, a pair of glowing eyes blinking and winking in the night sky. Madness.
“I think it’s pretty clear which one I am,” the nobleman said. He grinned, a manic expression, and I had the suspicion I knew the answer.
“Both, obviously,” the Count continued. “Although my wife would beg to differ.” His smile widened, but it did nothing to lessen my discomfort. “Ah, but listen to me prattle on like a foolish girl just out of the schoolroom. Come, come, let us make haste, for the night is cold and full of horrors that might snatch you up and steal you away.”
My ears pricked. “Steal me away?”
He paused then, turning to stare at me through the holes of his mask. “Haven’t you heard the stories, Fräulein?” His voice was soft, sweet. “There are those”—he gestured toward the house, toward the city proper—“who would say that these disappearances are a regrettable consequence of the, ah, pleasures in which I and my associates are known to indulge.”
I stiffened, thinking of what my landlady Frau Messner had told me: of the nameless girl the Procházkas had taken under their wing, the plain country maiden who had vanished under suspicious circumstances. Other bits of rumor and gossip flickered through my thoughts, wavering and dancing in and out like candle flame. Laudanum. Rituals. Secrets.
My host broke the tension with a laugh. “I jest, my dear. You have nothing to fear from me! Ah, I see we’ve found them,” he said, waving to someone in the distance. “Or perhaps we have been found.”
We emerged from the labyrinth. Standing outside, silhouetted by the lights from the house, were two figures: the swan-masked woman in white and a tall, thin youth holding a violin case, dressed as the night.
Josef.
“There you are,” said the woman in white. “I was beginning to worry about you.” Her green eyes were vivid, even in the shadows of her mask. “The night is cold and you have been gone quite some time.”
“Fräulein,” the Count said, turning to me. “May I introduce you to my wife, Countess Maria Elena von Procházka und zu Snovin.”
His wife. Suddenly, our earlier encounter made more sense, her overly familiar manner, how she seemed to have known me. The two of them made an odd pair; she all grace and cultured elegance, while he seemed put together by an absentminded puppeteer.
“Charmed,” she said. “But we’ve met before.”
Too late I remembered my manners and dropped into an awkward curtsy. “M-madame.”
“The title is properly styled Your Illustriousness,” the Count said kindly.
“Oh.” My cheeks flamed with shame. “Beg pardon.”
The Count waved his hand dismissively. “Let’s not fuss over such piddling details. Do call me Otto, or mein Herr, if you prefer.”
Reflexively, my hand went to the bare spot at the base of my throat, but no one seemed to notice.
“I would you stop embarrassing our guests, Otto,” the Countess admonished, but there was fondness in her voice. “You must forgive my husband, children,” she said, turning to me and Josef. “His enthusiasm rather runs away with him.”
I looked to my brother, but he was resolutely not returning my gaze.
“Shall we return?” he asked in a dull voice. “I would need some time to warm up.”
“Your brother has offered to grace us with a performance,” the Countess said. Those startling green eyes were fixed on my face. “A selection which includes some of your work, as I am to understand it.”
“Ah, yes, the composer,” Count Procházka said. “What a rare and magnificent gift you have, Fräulein!”
I tried to smile, but my face felt as frozen as the air outside. “It’s not much of a gift, Your Illustriousness.”
“Nonsense,” the Countess said. “The gift of creation and genius is the only one we share with God. Embrace your talents, Elisabeth, for they are rare indeed. Now”—she glanced over her shoulder at the labyrinth—“let us get back inside quickly. It is not a night to be caught outdoors without protection.”
Josef frowned. “Protection?”
“From frostbite.” The Count gave us a disarming smile.
The Countess shook her head. “Oh, an old superstition, child, nothing more. It is Shrove Tuesday, a night of transition from one season to another. As the days of winter draw to a close, hostile forces ride about.”
This time my brother did meet my gaze. There was a question in those pale blue depths, one I did not quite know how to answer. While Josef and I had grown up on tales of goblins, Lorelei, and Der Erlkönig, there were myths and tales we had yet to remember. The Wild Hunt. Elf-touched. Elf-struck.
The Count shivered. “Let us head inside, my dears; I’m freezing my unmentionables off.” He offered his wife his arm, not merely out of courtesy, but to help her hobble back inside.
“Otto!” The Countess gave her husband an affectionate slap on the arm, but the expression in those green eyes was anything but playful. Instead they seemed almost worried, darting back and forth from us to the hedge maze, as though she, too, could hear ghostly hoofbeats trailing us from another world.
* * *
Inside the house, the ball was still in full swing, the music filtering in along with the rhythmic patter of feet and the shushing swish of shoes and skirts across the floor. The Count and Countess brought Josef and me into a side gallery, away from the crowd in the ballroom, but the gallery was far from empty. A handful of guests were gathered there, drinking and smoking and laughing with the comfort and ease of longstanding acquaintances and friends. Behind their masks, there was an eerie similarity to all of them, although I did not know them from Adam. They all had the plump, placid look of those who had never known a moment’s hardship, the easy, generous manner of those who had never lacked for aught, yet there was a hunger about them, a want, a desire. My brother and I were no more than mayflies in their privileged sphere, but whenever their gazes alighted on us, they lingered with interest—with covetousness—at our bare faces. Their curiosity scratched, and I itched with discomfort.
“Where are Käthe and François?” I asked. My teeth chattered with more than cold.
“You’re shivering!” the Countess exclaimed. “Come, warm yourself by the Ofen, the two of you.”
She led Josef and me to what I had taken for a tall ceramic ornament or wardrobe set into a stone nook, radiant with heat. It looked a little like an oven, with poppies carved across its face.
“Shall I fetch you a shawl, my dear?” the Count asked me. His skull mask was perched atop his head, his cheeks red with overexertion and cold alike, sweat streaming down his temples.
“Oh no, Your—Your Illustriousness,” I said. “I’m quite all right. Have you seen my sister and our friend?”
But the Count paid me no heed. He waved down a servant and murmured something into his ear.
“Is there a place I might warm up in private?” Josef asked the Countess in a quiet voice. His eyes darted from corner to corner, side to side, taking in the number of people in the gallery.
“Of course, my child.” She gestured to another servant, who nodded his head and disappeared into the crowd. “We have a klavier in the drawing room downstairs,” she offered. “I’m afraid it’s nothing fancy; just an old harpsichord that belonged to Otto’s grandmother. Will that suffice?”
Josef looked to me, brows lifted. It was a bit surprising that the Count, a professed lover of music—my music—did not have a more modern instrument in his house. Nearly all performances were made on the fortepiano these days.
“We would have to ask François, Your Illustriousness,” I said. “He is my brother’s usual accompanist.”
“Not you?” the Countess asked. Her tone was neutral, but she seemed surprised.
“No, ma’am.”
“But I thought you were a musician.”
I bit my lip. My brother had once called me the genius of our relationship, the creator, not the interpreter. I wrote the notes, Josef gave them life. But many of Vienna’s well-known composers performed their works as well—the late, great Mozart and this upstart Beethoven among them. I was no prodigy of performance, a fact I learned almost immediately after hearing François play for the first time.
It was in these moments that I wished my brother would come to my defense, to speak for me, to explain our process, to be the one holding me up for once. But he stayed quiet and withdrawn, nearly invisible despite his golden curls, sharp features, and lean height.
“I am a musician,” I said quietly. “But my talents lie in the creation of music, not the execution of it. You will find my playing a very poor substitute for François’s indeed.”
Those grass green eyes glinted—with amusement? annoyance? —as the Countess studied me closely. “Nevertheless,” she said. “You are the composer of Der Erlkönig, are you not? It is your execution of your own work that interests me, not someone else’s interpretation of it.”
I looked to Josef again, but he was fiddling with his violin case, his feet shuffling back and forth nervously. A sudden surge of irritation burned the unease from my gut. If my brother would not speak on my behalf, then I would say nothing on his either. François was by far the better partner for Josef; they had had months of practice together on the road, and he knew how to shape their playing into a singular performance rather than a display of individual talents.
“As you wish, Your Illustriousness,” I said.
“Please.” The Countess smiled. “We are among friends. Call me Elena.”
I tried not to let my discomfort show. “Yes, ma’am,” I said, unable to bring myself to use her Christian name.
Her eyes twinkled in the depths of her wintry mask. “That’s settled then,” she said. “Come, we shall adjourn downstairs.” Yet another servant reappeared with a tray with glasses of sherry. Or was it the same as the first? I could no longer tell. “Ah, thank you. Have a drink, my dears. It shall keep you warm as we move you away from the Ofen.”
Josef and I accepted the glasses out of politeness, but neither he nor I were much inclined to take a sip.
“Drink, drink,” the Countess urged. “Drink and we shall begin.”
Seeing no other way to avoid being rude, we both downed our sherry and returned the glasses to the tray. Josef coughed, his face reddening.
“Fra-François,” he choked out, but our hostess did not appear to hear him. She held her arm out to her husband, who took it in his grip and helped her limp downstairs.
Josef and I watched them go.
“Well,” he said after a moment. “Shall we?” He absentmindedly scratched his neck, as though the sherry he had drunk could be rubbed away. It was then I noticed the scarlet poppy pinned to the lapel of his costume.
“Sepperl,” I said, pointing to the flower. “What is this?”
“Hmmm?” He dropped his arm and glanced down at his lapel. “Oh. The Countess gave it to me. ‘For faith,’ she said.”
My hand reached up to touch the wilted poppy tucked behind my own ear. I hadn’t lost it in the labyrinth.
“Sepp,” I whispered. “What have we gotten ourselves into?”
It was a long while before he answered. “You tell me, Liesl,” he said. His eyes were hard beneath his black domino mask. “After all, isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”