Alexander Chee - The Queen of the Night

If il trovatore is an agent of his king, this was his king. Here was my secret god, surely, the one who ruled over us all, hidden from view until now. Which meant the audience, in which he would explain all he had done, was next.

I was here finally. I had made it past the veil.

I sat before him in a wheelchair, all of me covered in a wolf cloak, my arms splinted over the dressing gown I’d worn for the trip — an invalid was allowed such things — but the cloak was meant to make me presentable for this initial greeting. The doctors who received me protested to the tenor that I needed rest, but I was brought all the same into the royal chamber to greet my host.

We were in a massive and ancient castle overlooking the Rhine from atop a sheer rock cliff — the same color as the rock it sat on, the castle looked to have grown there. Every surface inside seemed intricately wrought with carvings, and the walls encrusted by tapestries, paintings, taxidermy — snarling wolves, elegant deer, birds of kinds I’d never seen before; and along the elegantly arched walls, a forest of mounted horns and antlers rose to incredible heights.

They, too, seemed born out of the rock, all of it of a piece. I couldn’t imagine moving a single item from its place.

The Prince was addressing me from a modest throne of ancient carved wood nearly black in color. He spoke in the excellent French I remembered from when I first knew him; back then, he’d intimidated me into a sort of watchful silence, not so different from the one I kept here before him. The effect was uncanny. He was fair, upright, small for a German, with a thin, delicate nose and beautiful bowed lips beneath his full moustache. His small bright eyes shone with real happiness when he saw me. And yet this seemed like a mask, as if it could fall away. He wore his dress uniform decorated with a sash of a beautiful pale blue, as if to tell me a military operation had concluded or was still under way. I remembered him in more of a Paris poet’s attire, simple suits, a more bohemian, relaxed appearance; but even his beard and moustache were carefully waxed in place and his hair pomaded close. Though he had never really seemed to me to be a struggling composer, he appeared as out of place here as he had before in my Paris bedroom. Neither affect seemed like a disguise. Instead, it was as if he had a twin appearing before me now as a conqueror.

Perhaps he belonged nowhere. Perhaps he was like me.

I offered my hand, and he bowed as he took it, pressing a faint, warm kiss that surprised me.

You are surprised to see me again. Your surprise speaks well of our mutual friend’s discretion. Please, have some tea.

I was unable to hold a teacup, and so I looked first to the cup and then to my shoulders. He motioned to one of my new maids, who came and held the cup up to my lips. I took a drink.

First we thought you were dead, then we were sure you could not survive. Perhaps you are not a woman at all, he said.

This was the sort of remark I knew he thought was gracious. In my wheelchair, I shivered.

He said something quickly to one of the butlers observing from the side, and a fox cape was brought out and settled around my shoulders over the wolf.

It may be you cannot die, he said, but there’s no reason to let you get a chill.

He sat back.

We have always been a correction to France, he said. We routed the first Napoléon at the Battle of Leipzig. We have routed the second one now as well. I think any time a Napoléon grows to power, we will be ready to mark the place past which he cannot pass. It’s a pity about Eugénie, however. Did you love her, your mistress? he asked.

I did, I said.

I did also, he said. She should never have been an empress, but she was wonderful all the same. Please be welcome here, you are an honored guest. Whatever you need, please ask, it will be made available. We will spare no expense to nurse you back to health, and I hope you’ll be well enough to join us even briefly for the celebration this weekend.

The maid held my teacup back to my mouth, and I drank again. And as I did, I watched as, behind the Prince, the sight of that monstrous fountain of death in the Luxembourg Gardens returned. The bodies in their awful disarray, the pale stone stained red and black, as if the bodies had come out of some terrible well of death in the ground.

I said nothing; they could not see it. They would never see it. They would never see it, and I was sure I always would.

I focused instead on the smiling visage of the Prince, who seemed so strangely kind, though all of his proffered hospitality had a hidden distaste in it. Distaste or something worse.

He was looking at me with a studied interest, as he would at a hurting dog. He still needed me alive.

The muscles in my arms groaned as they pulled across the broken bones, anxious to clench my fists. My stupid heart, it kept beating; I could feel it against my chest as I was wheeled from the room.

§

Afterward, I was shown to my apartments, where I found trunks waiting for me. As the maids unpacked them, I shooed them away and sat in the corner under my new cape until the tenor came for me.

You haven’t even dressed, he said. Come, be quick. We cannot be late to dinner.

I only looked at him, empty of anything to say.

What’s wrong?

I shivered, not from the cold this time, but from fury.

My dear, I went to a great trouble for these. These are from Paris. From your dressmaker. He reached in and removed a dinner gown, unfolding it slowly. It was in the colors of the court, blue and white.

He snapped his fingers and maids appeared from outside the doorway.

Dress, and at dinner you will hear plans for the coming victory celebration. It is my hope you will be well enough to sing for our host then, for it will be partly in your honor.

My honor.

I waited for even the slightest recognition from him at what he’d done, but he avoided my eyes and was not looking at me even as he said this, looking to my side instead. As he bowed and left, walking past me to the door, I wanted to rage at him, to leap from this chair, grab the sword at his side, and stab him through.

All those nights while you slept, I should have killed you, I said to his back. I wish I had. Even if it would have meant my life, at least I would have died before losing him.

He stopped short.

I would have died before I met him, before I could have lost any of this.

I could see him in the mirror before me, his back still to me. He went to leave again and then paused.

I saved you, he said. You should have killed me? You owe me everything. I saved you, you belong to me, you belong here with me. Someday you’ll see why, and you’ll forgive me. And I, I will wait for that day. But remember: Anything you ever lost to me you had from me. Don’t forget this.

And with this, he turned the corner and was gone.

The maids brought me to the mirror to prepare, the one letting my hair down and beginning to brush it. My broken arms were setting still, and I could feel them at times, the bones reaching for one another across the break.

I shouted the maids away and took to the bed, where I stayed for days. When the tenor came to my door, I refused to respond to him. I refused the food and the water as well, taking only a little water when the maids held me down and the tenor poured it into my throat.

They began to tie me to the bed, forcing me to drink cool broth as well.

Has she gone mad then? I heard the Prince ask from the hall before one such session.

She is not mad, the tenor said. She is only stubborn. He sat down on the bed once my arms and feet had been bound to the posts. He reached to stroke my forehead and then pressed my hair back tenderly.