His voice fell into softer cadences, more reminiscence than supplication.
“My life, my very existence, is a torture unending. I made a bargain with the Devil, and I am in Hell. It’s something I never understood, not until I became king of this accursed place. I was so afraid of dying that I took the chance—any chance—to escape its deep darkness. What a fool I was. What a fool I am.”
He bowed his head again.
“Anger, heartache, joy, desire, I have not properly felt these emotions in a long time. Especially joy. Of them all, anger was the easiest to feel—bitterness and despair have been my constant companions for centuries. But despite everything, I still yearn for depth. For intensity. Despite the years, I have not forgotten the spark and the burn. I yearn to feel it again, even as time and eternity have inured me to the freshness.”
I clutched his violin to my breast, wishing I could go to him, wishing I could take him into my arms and give him comfort.
“I gave up trying a long time ago. Each of my brides had come to me willing to die; their lives in the world above had ended already. They all wanted one last chance to feel again, and I gave them that. I gave them tears, I gave them pleasure, but most of all, I gave them catharsis. They used me as much as I used them, and once they were gone, I hated them all for leaving me behind. Leaving me to endure alone, until the next one came along. But Elisabeth …”
I held my breath.
“She was never a hothouse flower. She is a sturdy oak tree. If her leaves have fallen, then she will bloom again come spring. She was not ready to die when she gave her life to me. But she did anyway, because she loved, and loved deeply.”
Tears scalded my lower lashes.
“I know what Thou wouldst tell me. I should have done the greater thing—the godly thing—and returned her to the world above.” A hitch in his throat. “But I was selfish.”
Suddenly, the trespass of what I was doing overcame me. I had come to deprive the Goblin King of his voice, only to realize perhaps it was I who should have been listening instead.
“I know what it means to love, my Lord. It was Thee who taught me how. Thou hath shown me through Thy words and Thy death, but I did not understand the meaning of sacrifice until now. To love is to be selfless. Let me be selfless. Lend me strength, my Lord, for I shall need it in the trials to come.”
The soft sound of crying, the echoes of which I tried my hardest to suppress.
“In Thy name I pray, amen.”
BE, THOU, WITH ME
Back in the retiring room, I studied the violin before me. It was rather plain, devoid of ornamentation, but made of a beautiful, rich wood, stained a dark amber. The instrument was clearly quite old, the belly dinged and scratched with age and wear, although it appeared as though the neck, pegbox, and scroll had been replaced more recently. I thought of the scroll painted with the portrait of the austere young man in the gallery, the woman whose face was contorted in pain or pleasure. It had looked familiar. I wondered what happened to it.
I lifted the violin from the stand. It was an instrument, like countless others I had picked up and played over the years, yet there was a living, breathing quality to it. The wood was warm beneath my hand, and as with the flute the Goblin King gave me oh so long ago, it was a touch that felt back. Like holding someone’s hand. Like holding the Goblin King’s hand.
I should not have taken it.
To love is to be selfless.
I should not have heard those words. It had been neither the time nor the place. The Goblin King and I deserved to face each other when we gave up our most intimate revelations, and I had stolen that from us. Regret roiled through me.
Mea culpa, mein Herr. Mea maxima culpa.
I tucked the violin beneath my chin, inhaling the faint scent of rosin. Faint traces of an earthier, muskier perfume were ingrained into the wood. The scent of ice curling over pond edges, the woody heart of a bonfire. The scent of the Goblin King.
I tuned the strings first, but the violin had been played recently enough that it needed little adjustment. I practiced a few scales and exercises, running my fingers up and down the neck, acquainting myself with the feel of it. Each violin was different from its brother in the subtlest, smallest of ways, even if the bones were the same. This violin was older than any of the ones we had at the inn—any of the ones we had remaining. The angle of its neck to the body was different, as well as the length of the fingerboard. The sound was fuller and deeper as I ran the bow over its strings.
My hands had not touched a violin since the Goblin Ball, when I joined the musicians playing the minuet, when I had first allowed that seed of music within me to crack and emerge forth. My instrument, by necessity rather than choice, had been the klavier. First because I was needed to accompany Josef, and second because the keyboard was the easiest place I could visualize my music. But the violin was the first instrument I had learned, and therefore the first instrument I had loved. Although it did not sing in my hands the way it did in my brother’s, or even the Goblin King’s, I knew how to ply its strings.
Vibrations ran along the belly of the violin and along my jaw where it rested against the instrument. I closed my eyes, feeling the resonance sing inside my head. Once I was warmed up, I let my fingers do what they willed—the beginnings of a few chaconnes, phrases from sonatas I had always enjoyed playing, runs of sixteenth notes and trills.
But it had been years since I last played with any serious intent, years since I had practiced. My fingers tangled themselves up, the discipline lazied out of them. I could no longer keep my tempos consistent, nor could I remember an entire piece from beginning to end. But there was no need to prove virtuosity to myself, not anymore. So I picked a simple aria, one Mother used to sing as she worked around the inn.