“Prague was never for us,” she said. “Prague was a mistake. But it is for the sake of the Palatinate that I did not go back to England. My brother invited me time and again, but Holland is formally still part of the Empire, and as long as I live there, our claim endures.”
A door opened, and a corpulent man with a kind face and shrewd eyes came in. He took off his hat and bowed. Although he was young, he had hardly any hair left on his head.
“Count Wolkenstein,” said Lamberg. “Our cavalier d’ambassade. He will provide you with accommodations. There are no rooms left in the inns here, every corner is packed with the envoys and their retinues.”
“We don’t want Bohemia,” said Liz, “but we will not cede the electoral dignity. My firstborn, who was clever and lovable and on whom everyone would have been able to agree, died. The boat overturned. He drowned.”
“I’m sorry,” Wolkenstein said with a plainness that touched her.
“My second son, the next in the line of succession, is neither clever nor lovable, but the electoral dignity of the Palatinate is rightfully his, and if the Bavarian simply won’t hand it over, an eighth must be created. The Protestants will not tolerate anything else. Otherwise I will go back to England, where the parliament will depose my brother and make my son king, and from high upon the English throne he will then demand Prague, and the war will not end. I will prevent it. All by myself.”
“We don’t need to get worked up,” said Lamberg. “I will pass on Your Highness’s message to His Imperial Majesty.”
“And my husband must be included in the amnesty. If all acts of the war are to be pardoned, then his too must be pardoned.”
“Not in this life,” said Lamberg.
She stood up. She was boiling with anger. She sensed that she had turned red, but she still managed to draw up the corners of her mouth, set her cane on the floor, and turn to the doors.
“A great and unexpected honor. A splendor in this poor house.” Lamberg took off his hat and bowed. Not a hint of mockery could be heard in his voice.
She raised her hand for the careless royal wave and walked on without a word.
Wolkenstein overtook her, reached the doors, and gave a knock—immediately the lackeys outside pulled them open. Liz stepped into the anteroom, followed by Wolkenstein. With her lady’s maid behind them, they walked to the exit.
“As for Your Royal Highness’s accommodations,” said Wolkenstein, “we could offer—”
“The count shouldn’t trouble himself.”
“It’s no trouble, but rather a great—”
“Does the count seriously believe I would wish to lodge somewhere that is teeming with imperial spies?”
“If I may speak plainly: Wherever Your Royal Highness finds accommodation, the place will be full of spies. We have so many of them. We’re losing on the battlefields, and there are not many secrets left. What are our poor spies to do all day?”
“The Kaiser is losing on the battlefields?”
“I was just there myself, down in Bavaria. My finger is still there!” He raised his hand and moved his glove to show her that the sheath of the right index finger was empty. “We have lost half the army. Your Royal Highness has not chosen a bad moment. As long as we are strong, we never make concessions.”
“It is a favorable time?”
“It is always a favorable time, when you begin correctly. Take pleasure in yourself and do not bow to sorrow, though fortune, place, and time may be in league against you.”
“Pardon me?”
“That is by a German poet. There’s such a thing now. German poets! His name is Paul Fleming. His works are so beautiful that they bring tears to one’s eyes; unfortunately he died young, from disease of the lung. One doesn’t dare to imagine what might have become of him. Because of him I write in German.”
She smiled. “Poems?”
“Prose.”
“Really, in German? I once gave Opitz a try—”
“Opitz!”
“Yes, Opitz.”
Both of them laughed.
“I know, it sounds like a folly,” said Wolkenstein. “But I think it’s possible, and I have decided to one day write my life in German. That’s why I’m here. Some day people will want to know what it was like at the great congress. I brought a traveling entertainer from Andechs to Vienna, or actually he brought me to Vienna—without him I would be dead. But when His Imperial Majesty then sent him to appear before the envoys, I seized the opportunity and came here with him.”
Liz gave her lady’s maid a sign. She hurried out to have the coach drive up. It was a beautiful carriage, fast and to some extent befitting her station. Liz had spent her last savings to rent it for two weeks along with two strong horses and a reliable coachman. This meant that she could remain in Osnabrück for three days, after which she had to set off for home.
She stepped outside and pulled her fur hood over her head. Had it gone well? She didn’t know. There was so much more she would have liked to say, so much else she would have liked to bring up, but that was probably how it always was. Papa had once said that one could always deploy only a fraction of one’s weapons.
Rumbling, the coach drove up. The driver climbed down. She looked around and realized with a peculiar regret that the fat cavalier d’ambassade had not followed her farther. She would have liked to speak a little more with him.
The coachman clasped her around the hips and carried her to the carriage.
II
The next morning Liz called on the Swedish ambassador. This time she had announced her visit. Sweden was a friendly power and the element of surprise unnecessary. The man would be glad to meet her.
The night had been terrible. After searching for a long time, she had found a room in an especially filthy inn: no window, brushwood on the floor, instead of a bed a narrow straw sack, which she had to share with her lady’s maid. When she had after several hours finally fallen into a restless sleep, she had dreamed of Friedrich and their days in Heidelberg, before people with unpronounceable names had pressed Bohemia’s crown on them. They had walked side by side through one of the stone corridors of the castle, and she had felt to the core of her soul what it meant to belong together. When she had woken up, she had listened to the snoring of the coachman sleeping outside the door and thought about how she had now lived almost as long without Friedrich as she had formerly been married to him.
When she entered the envoy’s anteroom, she had to suppress a yawn; she had slept far too little. Here too there were carpets, but the walls were bare in Protestant fashion; only on the side wall hung a cross adorned with pearls. The room was full of people: some were studying files, others walking restlessly up and down. They had apparently been waiting for some time. How did it happen anyway that Lamberg’s anteroom had been empty? Did he have another, perhaps even several?
All eyes turned to her. Silence fell. As on the previous day she walked with a firm step toward the door, while Quadt behind her called out in a loud, though somewhat shrill, voice: “The Queen of Bohemia!” Suddenly she worried that it would not go well this time.
And indeed, the lackey did not reach for the doorknob.
With an inelegant half-step she stopped, so abruptly that she had to support herself with her hand against the door. She heard her lady’s maid behind her nearly stumbling. She felt hot. She heard murmuring, she heard whispering, and yes, she heard snickering too.
Slowly she backed up two paces. Fortunately, her lady’s maid had the presence of mind to back up too. Liz clenched her left hand around the cane and looked at the lackey with her most pleasant smile.