Josef looked stricken. Aside from Bavarian and German, we spoke the barest bit of French, and what little Italian we knew was musical Italian.
“Never mind, I can see that he didn’t.” Master Antonius waved his hand dismissively. “So,” he said, nodding at the violin in Josef’s hand. “Let’s see what you can do.”
There was no disguising the skepticism and contempt in the old maestro’s voice. He must have been wondering why Georg Vogler had never taken his son to any of the capital cities for further instruction, if Josef’s skill was indeed of any worth.
Because, I thought with despair, Papa can’t see farther than the bottom of his next drink.
“Well?” Master Antonius prompted when Josef hesitated. “What are you going to play, boy?”
“A Haydn sonata,” my brother said, stuttering a little. My stomach clenched in sympathetic misery. “Haydn, eh? Never did compose anything of worth for the violin. Which one?”
“The—the one in D major. N-number two.”
“I suppose you’ll be needing accompaniment. François!”
Both Josef and I jumped when a slender youth materialized by Master Antonius’s side, astonished by the valet’s sudden appearance. But I didn’t know what astonished us more—the young man’s beauty, or his dark skin.
“This is my assistant, François,” Master Antonius said, ignoring the gasps and gapes from the assembled masses. “He is regrettably not a violinist, but he fingers the keyboard masterfully.”
My brows lifted at the sneer in the old man’s words. The youth, impeccably and garishly dressed in a gold and ivory frock coat, buckskin breeches, and powdered wig, seemed more like a pretty pet than a musician’s assistant. My stomach began to sink with fear; just what sort of man was Master Antonius?
Josef cleared his throat and gave me a panicked look. We had practiced together, and had therefore expected to be performing together. I stepped forward.
“If you please,” I said. “I would like to accompany my brother.”
Master Antonius noticed me for the first time. “Who is this?”
“My daughter Elisabeth is also educated in music,” Papa said. “You must forgive her, maestro; I indulged her fancies as a child.”
I winced. Yes, Papa had taught me music—not on my own merits, but as a means to an end. I was an afterthought, an accompanist, not a musician in my own right.
“A veritable family of musicians,” Master Antonius remarked in a dry voice. “A regular Nannerl to yon boy’s Wolfgang, is it?”
Papa shook his head. “We will, of course, defer to young master François here, if that is your wish, Antonius.”
Master Antonius nodded. “François, assieds-toi et aide le petit poseur avec sa musique, sonate de Haydn, s’il te plait. Numéro deux, majeur D.”
François gave a sharp bow and walked to the fortepiano, flipping out his coattails as he sat down at the bench, giving us all a flash of sky-blue silk lining. His poise in the midst of the audience’s all-too-curious and none-too-friendly stares was incredible. The youth readied his hands over the keyboard and nodded at my brother, awaiting his cue.
Josef was agog. The youth was beautiful: his skin smooth and completely flawless, his lips full, his eyes dark, his lashes long. We had never seen a black person before, but I didn’t think it was the color of François’s skin that captivated my brother.
I cleared my throat, and Josef flinched. He immediately busied himself with his violin, his cheeks flaming, unable to meet François’s gaze. The youth had a slight, bashful smile about his face.
My brother managed to regain his composure, and nodded at François, setting the tempo with his bow. The two began to play, and a hush fell over the room.
To the untrained ear, it might have been hard to distinguish Josef’s—or even François’s—playing from any other professional musician. They hit all their notes with precision and clarity, their phrasing impeccable. But if you knew my brother as I did, or even if you loved music at all, you could feel the intelligence, the intent, behind his performance. He interpreted what was written into something almost like speech, as if he could wring words and sentences from the notes and phrases.
But the majority of the assembled guests were not trained in music, and shortly after the two started playing, the low buzz of conversation arose once more. Most returned to their food and drink, keeping their voices down to a respectful murmur. A polite few kept their attention focused on Josef and François: Master Antonius, my family, and Hans. But I spied another in a darkened corner of the room, and my heart stopped.
It was the Goblin King.
He sat among us, brazen and bare-faced, inconspicuously dressed in leather trousers and a roughspun woolen coat. Yet it was difficult to miss his unusual height, his slender physique, his strange coloring, so starkly different from the rest of us stocky, dark-haired peasants. The Goblin King caught my eye. His gaze reached right through me, touching some private core deep within me no one else could see. His lips twisted to one side, a sardonic smile.
His presence scratched that itch in my mind, that niggling sense of something lost. And then it all returned to me in a rush of fear: spindly fingers and bloody fruit, my sister in a red cloak in a winter wood, a forgotten conversation among the alders. Suddenly, it was just the two of us, suspended in a moment. Time, like memory, was just another one of his toys.