‘From midday tomorrow you and your family shall be cast out and your land and house repossessed,’ the count announces smoothly.
The farmer’s jaw drops open, revealing a row of blackened stumps. For a moment he is too shocked to speak, then, indignant, he bursts into broad dialect. ‘But sire, I have five children! We will all starve! I can pay you back, I can!’
Clutching at Detlef’s robes he drops to his knees, begging. Immediately two lackeys grab him and begin to drag him towards the door.
‘Stop!’ Detlef cries out.
Confused, the manservants pause, waiting for instruction. The canon turns to his brother.
‘Surely it is fitting that we celebrate the prince’s recovery? If Ferdinand lives, grant a reprieve of three months to Herr Braun: that should give him enough time to pay back the rent and the gesture will only enhance your reputation as a humane and generous master.’
‘And if the prince dies?’
‘Naturally Herr Braun shall be without a roof,’ Detlef answers, calculating on the addiction of the gambler, one of his brother’s foibles.
Amused by Detlef’s stratagem, the count consults with his land manager who scribbles out financial calculations with a quill made from a long black raven’s feather. Angrily the manager explains the sums to his overlord who, smiling at the official’s indignation, turns back to the farmer still kneeling on the floor, his eyes wide in panic.
‘So be it.’
‘Oh, thank you, your highness. You are indeed a kind man, thank you.’
Irritated by his obsequiousness, the count waves him off. As the land manager continues to splutter in outrage, Gerhard calmly tears up the eviction notice and with a regal flourish throws the pieces over the trembling serf. Too terrified to move, the peasant stays kneeling.
‘But Herr Braun, it would be prudent of you to pack your belongings anyhow,’ the count adds before the servants hoist the farmer to his feet and haul him out.
Yawning, Gerhard turns back to Detlef.
‘The inferiority of these people astounds me! He will be running around the village boasting about the kind heart of his good lord before cock crow. ‘Tis almost a pity we shall be evicting him tomorrow.’
‘You shall not keep your word?’
‘Naturally. But brother, you and I both know the prince will die.’
The handsome young musician pauses dramatically at his harpsichord. A periwig in the latest style, imported from the Italian court, balances precariously on his head. His slender muscled figure is clearly apparent under his short-sleeved tunic made of philoselle, bound at the shoulder with an obscenely abundant knot of scarlet ribbon. Before sitting he flicks up the long velvet tails of his waistcoat, revealing for an instant his taut satin-clad buttocks. An audible sigh of desire ripples through the assembled women. Thrilled with the effect, the musician tosses back his locks and stretches his long elegant fingers suggestively over the keyboard. Smiling mischievously he scans the front row of his audience, knowing that his heated stare leaves every woman there convinced of a liaison later that evening. Only then does he begin to play.
Seated in two curved rows, the wealthy wives of the bürgers, desperate for an opportunity to show off their imported finery, preen and fidget like excited canaries. Birgit, her tight-fitted bodice tapering to an elegant point, her embroidered blue underskirt flaring out from beneath a silk skirt of black taffeta, her bosom, neck and shoulders covered by a fine lace gorget fastened at the front with a diamond and emerald brooch her husband has just brought back from a trip to the West Indies, is the most restless of them all. Not even the lascivious glances of the young instrumentalist—a dusky Italian who has threatened to tutor all the ladies and daughters of Cologne—can soothe her irritation.
It has been over a month since she last saw Detlef. Only half an hour ago she suffered the indignity of sending her page to Groot’s seedy chamber, wanting to establish whether the rumour that the canon is at Das Grüntal attending the sick prince is true. Groot’s diplomatic but highly ambiguous answer has only added to her anxiety. In the sedan chair on the way to the recital she actually wept with frustration. And now, despite the powdered white lead she has applied, conscious of her swollen eyes she affects a shrill air of gaiety—which fools none of the women around her.
‘Nice trinket.’ Meisterin Schmidt, wife of Klaus Schmidt, head of the guild of kegmakers, stares at the brooch at Birgit’s bosom. ‘You must be pleasing the husband then?’
For the millionth time Birgit curses the fact that she married a mere bürger and not one of her own.
‘What pleases me pleases him.’
But Meisterin Schmidt, winking at another woman who is wearing a ridiculously high cornet headdress, persists. ‘In that case, Merchant Ter Lahn von Lennep must be more pious than I thought, although I have heard rumour that you have not attended confession for several weeks. Why not visit another priest? Confession is confession. Although, of course, the canon’s enthusiasm is legendary and he is much loved.’
‘There is no need. I have it on good authority that the canon is attending to family business and will be with us by the summer solstice.’
‘I am much relieved to hear it, Meisterin Ter Lahn von Lennep, as you yourself must be.’
They are interrup
ted by the first notes of a madrigal, a decorative tune ill suited to Birgit’s mood. As she sits there a sudden panic sweeps through her. For the first time in their five-year love affair she senses that the bond that has always connected her to her lover—a sensibility that allowed her to intuit Detlef’s movements, to visit him in spirit at night, to kneel beside him at prayer, her warm breath on his shoulder, to watch him saying a mass—has been brutally and inexplicably severed.
Terrified by the notion, she starts to tremble despite the heat of the auditorium. Craving reassurance like an opiate, she clenches her gloved hands and summons all her willpower to stop herself running out to look for him, wanting Detlef to tell her that her terror is misplaced, that his affection for her is as strong as ever.
Instead she drops her veil and forces her features into a rigid mask of control. Beneath the lace her jaw tightens as she tries to listen to the music which her distraught ear has reduced to a series of discordant notes.