Masks and Shadows by Stephanie Burgis Page B

trick . . .
    No . Prince Nikolaus Esterházy ruled with a grimly paternal certainty. He would punish, aye, and care nothing for his victim’s agony, but then he’d consider the debt discharged. Not for him the creeping paranoia that would send spies into the darkness of his own prison cells.
    So Franz licked his dry lips with his swollen tongue and told the truth to the voice in the dark.
    â€œ Never .”
    â€œAh,” said the voice. Franz could almost hear its smile. “In that case, I have a proposition to lay before you . . .”

    Violins twined around each other, rising, pleading. Flutes seconded them below, adding soft voices to the plea. The cellos and basses pushed the harmony achingly wide, until Charlotte’s whole body vibrated with the need for release. They were about to resolve—they must resolve—
    But no, for each seeming resolution revealed itself to be only another twisting turn in a string of modulations, stretching the tension tighter and tighter yet. The sweet voice of the horns drove forward a tone that turned more dissonant with every beat until—
    Pain stabbed up through Charlotte’s fingers, wrapped so tightly around each other that the knuckles had gone white. She released them with a gasp and returned her attention to the orchestra just in time. Herr Haydn’s violin bow swept high to lead the rest in a final, sweeping downbeat of resolution so sweet and right that it brought tears to Charlotte’s eyes.
    She clapped enthusiastically, ignoring the lingering remnants of pain in her fingers. Herr Haydn led the orchestra in a bow to the Prince, in the center of the music room. Charlotte flushed in pleasure as his bow took in her seat, only three chairs distant from the Prince. This glorious music was worth anything. Everything .
    â€œTake care, Baroness,” Signor Morelli murmured. “I fear you may be losing your seat.”
    It was true; she teetered at the edge of her chair. She righted herself, relieved to see no mockery after all in the castrato’s dark eyes.
    She smiled at him, this time without the tightening in her chest that she’d felt before him earlier in the evening. “Herr Haydn’s music is marvelous, is it not?”
    Sophie and the Prince were murmuring together already, while the Prince’s niece chimed in with a sardonic tone that brought them all to easy laughter. In the sudden din of conversation, Charlotte found herself unexpectedly grateful to be seated by the one other person who might feel all that she did.
    â€œI’d never seen such concerts in my life before I came here,” she said.
    Signor Morelli’s eyebrows rose. “Not even in Vienna?”
    â€œOh, our parents are not at all musical, I’m afraid. And of course I moved to Saxony upon my marriage, many years ago.”
    She fixed her eyes back on the orchestra, hungrily observing the preparations for the violin concerto that would follow. The marble walls of the music room were ornamented with rich gilding, at what must have been a fabulous expense, and the musicians took visible care as they shifted their chairs for the new configuration.
    â€œI’ve heard that even in Saxony, fine concerts do occasionally occur.”
    Charlotte laughed. “Not in the depths of rural society, signor, I assure you.” Though I cannot imagine you ever finding that out for yourself . The idea of the sophisticated castrato, in his fashionable, expensive Parisian clothing, wandering the grass-covered roads of her husband’s estate and attracting the wide-eyed amazement of Ernst’s stuffy neighbors, was an absurdity that appealed to her strongly. She curbed her smile with an effort, and returned her focus to the conversation. “But I have been playing Herr Haydn’s keyboard sonatas for years. I’ve even read through the arias from his operas, although I’ve not the voice for them.”
    â€œNo?” His eyes