Chapter 1

Chapter One

Music filled the redolent evening air.

Lena Arenheim stepped out of the shop and onto the busy street, clutching a violin case and several sheets of music to her chest. She paused, threw her head back and closed her eyes, immersing herself in the intoxicating cacophony of sounds around her.

Church bells. A tenor singing an aria. The enthusiastic plucking of a violin. Lena smiled at the scratchy, crooked melody of the waltz, which had a certain charm.

There were other sounds, too—the clatter of horse hooves, the squeaking of carriage wheels, the hurried slap of leather boots on cobblestones, and the melodic calls of street vendors hawking lavender, chestnuts, onions, and other wares.

" Servus Sepp!" a man greeted his friend.

An anxious woman's voice called out repeatedly, "Catherine!"

Jugglers and magicians, dancers, and travelling musicians occupied every available space in the busy, narrow streets. All of Vienna had been transformed into a magnificent, glittering fairground, and the Congress had not even officially begun.

Humming to the crooked waltz tunes, Lena skipped over a puddle and stopped in front of an elegant hosiery shop. Oh my! What fine stockings they were. The latest fashion, silk, in all colours, ribbed, plain or embroidered with the loveliest floral patterns.

She wiggled her toes in her grubby boots and felt her toe peek through a hole. How lovely it would be to have a pair of those stockings, in pastel pink with matching garters. Her own woollen stockings had been darned countless times. They were scratchy and misshapen, a hopeless grey. No amount of scrubbing and bleaching could restore them to their original white state.

She looked longingly at the delicate stockings in the shop window. How much could they cost? Leaning forwards until her forehead almost touched the glass, she squinted to read the scrawl on the small piece of paper pinned to it.

"Fifty Gulden ?" She gasped. "Are they mad?" She could buy a dozen pairs of shoes with that. She could feed the whole family for a month, if not more. But that staggering amount for a single pair of stockings?

"Unbelievable." She lifted her head to read the elegant golden script on the glass: Sch?nberger Strümpfe , and underneath, in finer letters, K u k Hoflieferant .

Well, that explained it. This shop was an Imperial and Royal Court Supplier, delivering directly to the court. The Empress herself wore stockings from here .

With a wry smile, she concluded that this was not the place to buy her stockings. She was, after all, on Kohlmarkt, a narrow, elegant street leading to the Imperial Palace. It was home to the most fashionable and expensive shops in the empire.

The glass door opened with a jingle and a man in a fine suit stepped out and held the door open for a haughty-looking lady in an elegant redingote trimmed with fur, followed by two liveried footmen carrying boxes.

" Küss die Hand, gn?' Frau , please visit us again," the man said as he bowed deeply. It was a typical Viennese greeting, meaning ‘Kiss your hand, gracious lady'.

The lady stepped out into the street, passing Lena as if she were air.

The man, no doubt the shopkeeper, saw Lena and wrinkled his nose. "No loitering here." He made a shooing motion, as if she were a fly he was trying to swat away. "Move on now, move on."

"I was merely looking," Lena began, but the man raised his arm to hail a man in a grey uniform with a kepi on his head on the other side of the street.

"I'll call the guard if you don't move. There's one right there."

"Very well, I'll go." She moved away hastily. The last thing she wanted was trouble with the police. They were especially strict these days, patrolling the streets and arresting anyone who looked the least bit suspicious.

She hurried along the street towards the palace, lifting her mud-splattered skirt and jumping over a pile of horse dung to reach the other side. How dare that shopkeeper treat her as if she were an inferior person just because she was not wearing an expensive ermine coat? What if she had actually wanted to spend fifty Gulden on a pair of stockings? What if?—

"Look out, woman!" a voice roared. Horses neighed, brakes squeaked. Jerking her head up in time, Lena realised she'd nearly collided with a carriage. She jumped back, stumbled, slipped, and fell into a pile of manure. Her heart thudded violently in her chest. Goodness, that had been dangerously close.

"Gather your wits, Lena," she scolded herself. She pulled herself up, her fingers trembling as she wiped the manure from her skirts. Thank goodness she had clung tightly to Theo's violin; the instrument was undamaged. It was priceless, nearly a century old, passed down through generations of the Arenheim family. The thought of anything happening to it was unthinkable. The notes were scattered all over the street. Her precious music, trampled in the manure by the horses.

The coachman had stopped the carriage and was shouting curses at her. Lena ignored him and picked up the muddy sheets.

"Catherine!"

The wind scattered the papers further, and Lena scrambled after a sheet before it flew under the carriage. She bent down to pick up another when suddenly someone grabbed her arm and pulled her around.

"Catherine!"

She found herself staring into the dark eyes of a young woman who'd climbed down from the carriage that had almost run her over .

"Heavens above," the woman gasped. "How is this possible?"

And before Lena could blink, she found herself enveloped in a cloud of perfume, cashmere, and silk as the lady burst into tears.

Lena tried to pull away, but the lady sobbed into her neck and clung to her like ivy. She babbled rapidly in English.

It was clear that this woman had mistaken her for someone else. That kind of thing could happen; it was simple human error, a misunderstanding. In fact, something like that had happened to her just the other day, when a child in the crowded market square had mistaken Lena for his mother and had hugged her legs before realising his mistake. He too had burst into tears, but she had gently wiped his cheeks and waited with him until his mother came running. No doubt this must be a similar situation.

She blew away a feather from her lips that must have fallen from the woman's opulent headdress.

"Catherine, it really is you! Is this a miracle? How—how is it that you are here? After all this time? How is it that you are…alive?" The lady's mouth wobbled dangerously, as if she was about to burst into a fresh flood of tears.

Lena pulled away, alarmed. "I'm sorry. I don't know you. You've made a mistake." Her English was a little stilted. She usually had little contact with English speakers and therefore hadn't spoken English for a long time .

The woman's mouth fell open and a look of doubt crept into her eyes. "Catherine? It is you, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid not. My name is Helena Arenheim. Please, excuse me?—"

"But…you are definitely Catherine!" She reached out and tilted Lena's face to the side. "You must be. You even have that heart-shaped birthmark on your cheek. There! Only Catherine had that. Of course you are Catherine!"

Lena stared at her with her mouth agape. The lady was dainty and very pretty with wild brown curls falling over a heart-shaped face, a wide mouth, and big dark eyes swimming in tears. The hands that still gripped her arm were gloved, her feet were in satin slippers, and she was wearing a fashionable pastel pink redingote and an extravagant feathered headdress that Lena couldn't afford even in her dreams. She felt awkward and self-conscious in her threadbare, simple blue cotton dress and mud-spattered coat, reeking of manure.

"I am sorry." She tried again to pull her arm away.

The lady frowned. "You have not changed at all, Catherine."

Lena huffed, partly annoyed, partly amused. Was the lady mad? She must be, for she simply refused to accept that she wasn't this Catherine. With a firm tug, Lena removed her hand from her arm. "My name is Helena, not Catherine. Now, I must go. My children are waiting. I wish you a good evening."

The woman dropped her hands. "Children? You have children?"

Lena's face lit up with pride, as it always did when discussing her children. "Yes. I have four children. "

"Did you say four?"

"Yes, four." Never mind that three of them were actually her stepchildren, for they were as dear to her as her own flesh and blood, and she loved them all equally.

"Good heavens." The woman's mouth fell open in either admiration or dismay, Lena couldn't decide. Whatever it was, she had no time to chat with the mad Englishwoman. She felt the policeman stare at her. Lena shuffled uneasily. The lamplighters were already lighting the street lamps. It was late. The children were waiting. She had to go.

Lena took advantage of the woman's surprise, clutched the dirty papers and her violin to her chest, and made her escape by skilfully stepping around her. She could feel the woman's gaze piercing between her shoulder blades as she hurried down the street.

She arrived at the market square hot and out of breath, where Karl Bauer was waiting with his cart, pipe in mouth, reading a newspaper. Karl was her neighbour and had kindly offered to drive her home.

"There you are," he said jovially as he folded up the newspaper. He was a corpulent man with sparse, greasy hair meticulously combed over his bald spot, and he was dressed in patchy trousers and a waistcoat. Despite his scruffy appearance, which often led people to mistake him for a street peddler, he was surprisingly well-read and knowledgeable about politics and current affairs. He had a heart of gold, and he and his wife Emma had been Lena's biggest support in the difficult years after Simon's death. Karl and Emma were almost family to her. Lena would have been lost without them .

"Thank you for waiting for me, Karl." She dropped onto the seat next to him and fanned herself with her music. "You're an angel."

"Rough day?"

"Terrible."

Karl grunted. "Did you get anything done?"

Lena just sighed.

He nodded and refrained from prodding her further. "The roads are congested," he merely commented. "It's terrible." He clucked his tongue and set the carriage in motion.

"Unbearable," Lena agreed. "The streets have become downright dangerous for pedestrians." Her mind wandered back to the crazy Englishwoman and wondered what that had been about.

"It's never been this bad. Now that the Congress has started, the streets are clogged with foreign carriages. Mark my words, it will only get worse. Look at that," he said in disgust, pointing to the carriages crowding in the narrow streets. "I just read in the papers that the French delegation arrived yesterday. What's the name of that legendary Frenchman? Monsieur de Talleyrand." Karl pronounced every single letter of his name in true German fashion. "They say he dresses as in the last century, with wigs and satin breeches, and walks with a limp. The British delegation has also arrived. Viscount what's-his-name. Castleraw? Castlereach? Bah. One doesn't know how to pronounce these strange foreign names."

"It's ray," Lena said absent-mindedly. "Cah-suhl-ray." Then she blinked. "Strange that I know that," she muttered more to herself than to him.

Karl threw down his ribbons impatiently. "Ah, look at this, it's unbearable! Here we are again, stuck until doomsday. It will take us a good hour or more to get through the Schottentor. It's like a bottleneck, with everyone and everything trying to squeeze through. Emma will be furious that we're late again."

"The children are also waiting. Next time we'll walk. It's faster."

"Most definitely. See that there?" Karl pointed his whip at a sleek, dark green berline carriage with a royal gold crest on the door cutting in front of them. "Driving like madmen. It's one of the imperial carriages, of course. Our emperor had three hundred of them made especially for his guests. The amount the emperor is spending on the Congress is outrageous. All these foreigners have to be lodged, fed, and entertained. They don't want plain farmer's bread, no sir, they want oysters and caviar. They don't want an ordinary bed in a sensible lodging, but a baldachin bed in a palace, yes, my lady. That British viscount already threw a fit because his lodgings weren't good enough. Now he's moving into a palais at the Minoritenplatz." He shook his head. "A baroque palace with twenty-two rooms! Insanity. The rich and famous are so high in the instep, they live in another world entirely. While the likes of us struggle to feed our children."

Lena agreed wholeheartedly. Her own children ate her out of house and home. Securing commissions to sustain their livelihood had become a constant source of anxiety for her.

She sat up straight as an idea occurred to her. "Oh! Speaking of entertainment. Do you think I should knock on the door of that carriage to ask whether that aristocratic occupant would deign to hire us for musical entertainment?" She'd meant it as a joke, but her fingers gripped her seat tightly in anticipation.

Karl grunted in disagreement. "I wouldn't do it. Better for the likes of us not to approach the high and mighty. We don't mingle well."

Lena chewed on her lower lip, debating whether she should tell him that she'd wasted a good four hours waiting in front of the Palais Metternich to seek an introduction—all in vain. She had been turned away rudely without having even been able to enter the hallowed place.

She heaved a sigh.

Competition for performance opportunities was fierce. It was not easy for musicians without reputation to gain admittance beyond smaller assembly halls and restaurants, not when Beethoven was performing his newest symphony to a packed concert hall. For who had ever heard of the Arenheim family? "Aren-who?" they asked. Yet they were as talented as anyone else, Lena thought fiercely. Theo, the oldest, played the cello to perfection, while sixteen-year-old Mona was a virtuoso with the viola. The two younger boys, Hector and Achilles, were adept at playing the violin and flute, but they were too young to perform in public. She herself played the pianoforte masterfully and sang a lovely coloratura soprano, having memorised the score of entire Mozart operas.

Together, they performed as well as anyone—no, better. But talent wasn't everything. The world of music was competitive. If one did not know the right people, if one did not have a wealthy patron, if one was not a member of the correct guild, if one did not have the right connections, or, heaven forbid, if one was a woman, the doors would not open.

Lena was convinced that they needed only one chance, one single performance in one of those glittering aristocratic soirees. Where music was appreciated, where the intellectual elite gathered, or even better, where the diplomats and statesmen convened at Prince Metternich's palais. The most glittering, glamorous fêtes were held there. Once one performed there, one's name was made. That would be grabbing for the stars, indeed. It was an impossibility. It would never happen. Yet one could dream, could one not?

The court carriage in front of them inched forwards slowly.

"At this rate, we'll be home tomorrow morning," Karl groaned, leaning back and lighting his pipe.

"I wonder which of the guests is in that vehicle? It could be anyone, really. Do you think it could be a royal?" She sat up with a gasp. "Could it be Tsar Alexander?" He was already very popular amongst the Viennese.

Lena stared at the golden double-headed eagle engraved on the door. The carriage that had almost struck her had been a green court carriage, a four-wheeled berline with a closed roof. It had been that mad Englishwoman's carriage. A liveried footman stood at the back, and the driver sat on a black and silver embroidered cloth that draped his seat. Did that mean that the Englishwoman was one of the aristocratic visitors attending the Congress? A steep frown formed on Lena's forehead. She was troubled with the single-minded way in which the woman had insisted on calling her Catherine. Surely there was nothing to it. Lena wasn't really worried about that, was she? Then why couldn't she let go of the incident?

"Unlikely. I don't think it's the Tsar's carriage. Haven't you read the papers?"

Lena shook her head. "No time."

"The Tsar is to arrive with Frederick William, the king of Prussia, tomorrow. Our emperor will receive them. There will be a parade of pomp and glory as the three monarchs enter the city." Karl pulled out a dirty handkerchief and wiped his nose loudly. "Emma says she wouldn't miss it for the world. It can't be helped. I suppose I shall have to accompany her to gawk at them."

Lena suppressed a grin. Despite his protests, Karl was as starstruck by the foreign aristocratic visitors as much as any of them were.

"My children will want to see it too, I suppose."

She had to admit, it was a sight to behold, seeing the elite strolling along the Bastei, riding under the chestnut trees in the wide lanes of the Prater, dressed in the latest expensive fashions, conducting themselves with an air of arrogant distinction. People stopped and gaped in awe at the foreign princes, dukes, and marquesses who suddenly mingled freely among them.

The sound of wheels crunching on the cobblestones signalled that the vehicles had begun to move again.

"Otherwise, did you have a good day?" Karl asked distractedly as he led the cart through the narrow streets.

"Yes." Lena's brows furrowed. "But I have to say, it was strange. Very, very strange."