1848

Revolution sweeps through Europe. Radek persuades the baron to leave Austria. The baron agrees but only if he can bring Josef with him.

 

Chapter Eight

1848

 

          Having years before accepted the inevitability of police spies at Marienberg, Radek had offered his own services to the Imperial police, free of charge. Inspector Stossmeyer, ever anxious to reduce expenses had accepted with thanks. It proved a mutually beneficial arrangement. Radek kept the Inspector supplied with information about Frederick and Marienberg. In return the inspector would provide an occasional small service, the latest being not to hold an official inquiry into Father Schiller's death.

         If Radek accumulated enough seditious material, the chancellor might call upon the baron to meet with him. As one gentleman to another the Chancellor, in the most courteous of tones, would suggest that traveling abroad for an extended period might be beneficial to Frederick's health. Rather than create a scandal, Frederick would agree.  The door would be opened for America. In the end all of this plotting proved

a waste of time. Paris caught a cold.           

 

            On the twenty-fourth of February the government of King Louis-Philippe fell ending the French kingdom. The German kings and princes could not contain the fever of revolution to the western side of the Rhine. By the thirteenth of March it had spread to Vienna.  The accumulated tinder of forty years of authoritarian rule exploded.  By the fifteenth mobs controlled the city streets and demanded the resignation of Chancellor Clemens Wenzal Lothar, Count Von Metternich-Winneberg-Belstein.

          Caught between resigning and calling out the troops, the seventy-five year old chancellor informed the emperor that he could no longer form a government. For his safety he chose a comfortable exile in England. That night, hiding in the house of a friend, Metternich sat in front of a piano.  With two fingers he tapped out the Marseillaise. As he did so he wondered not why the revolution had come but why it had taken so long to come.

          Herr Radek, upon hearing of the chancellor's resignation, shared a bottle of Frederick's champagne with Katrina and her brothers. He also appointed a young accountant from Karlsbad, Adolf Koch, to serve as his assistant in the counting house. Herr Koch would be too intimidated by Herr Radek's reputation to ask embarrassing questions.  As an added safeguard Radek burned his second set of books.

        On the day of Koch's appointment Inspector Strossmeyer received a distinguished visitor, Baron Von Kraunitz. Bowing and smiling the inspector inwardly cursed Radek for not informing him of the baron's  coming. The cursing was quite unfair. All Radek had known was that the baron had traveled to Karlsbad to take the waters and look at the bookshops. As he sat beneath his emperor's portrait, Herr Strossmeyer toasted the baron's health and wondered what the devil the man wanted. In the bottom left drawer of his desk he kept the reports sent to him by Radek telling him of the baron's character; drunkard, opium taker, sodomite, atheist and worst of all potential Jacobite. Even so he remained a peer of the realm and could shatter Herr Strossmeyer's career with a single word. Had the baron discovered that Radek was a spy?   “I have come for some information Herr Strossmeyer. I think you are the one who can help me”

   “Of course your Excellency.”

         “I am interested in knowing what information you might have related to the deaths of my parents.”

        “That was a …long time ago, your Excellency.”                

       “Your records go back much further than that, do they not?”

        “Yes your Excellency.”

       “It is my wish to examine the files concerning your investigation.”

       “That is most unusual, your Excellency.”

      “These are unusual times, Herr Strossmeyer. We have a new government and new rules. A man such as yourself might be in need of a friend in the next few weeks. All I ask is to look at the files. I will not remove them from your office.”

       Strossmeyer chewed his bottom lip. The chancellor had gone. The system that he had epitomized seemed to be collapsing. Next month where would he, Inpsector Strossmeyer be? “Of course your Excellency, if they remain in the office.”

         “I may take notes?”   

            Strossmeyer nodded. “Would you care for some more wine your Excellency?” 

        As he watched the baron read through the few papers related to the case Herr Strossmeyer decided not to inform Herr Radek of his Excellency's visit.

***

        By April Radek's prediction seemed fulfilled. Imperial control over Italy and Hungary had collapsed.

The greatest cities of the empire had fallen to the revolutionaries. Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Milan had driven out the Imperial officials and garrisons. The government seemed too disorganized and too lacking in courage to defend itself.  On the Von Kraunitz estates conditions were no better. Three estates had suffered disturbances, one of which had been Jablunka.  The peasants hearing that the Jews and Poles had kidnapped the emperor had turned upon the only known enemy in their midst, Pan Dombowski. The Dombrowskis had fled to Father Tomisek's house as the peasants swarmed into the overseer's home looting and burning tax records.

        Frederick was now reading Carlye's History of the French Revolution. What had happened in France in the summer of 1789 he could now see taking place in Austria. Every day he could read in Radek's reports, in the newspapers, in the looks of the servants, the panic spreading through the country. Even at night he was not free for Josef would tell him of how the stories about revolutionaries frightened him. Still Frederick dithered. Marienberg was comfortable. Traveling was not. Life continued. He spent his days and evenings studying, rarely venturing outside the house. He had given up meeting with the servants or attending mass. The library, his manuscript and Josef had become his life. Sometimes deep in the night he would lie awake and listen to Josef breathing. Satisfied that the boy was asleep he would rise, pull on his dressing gown and go into the library. Beside the fire he would sit in his chair, his brandy and opium at his side. He would sit alone, haunted by the memory of an old man and by the memory of his father.

            After several weeks of procrastination Frederick came to a decision. On the morning of April twenty-third, he summoned Radek to his library. It was his wish, he told the overseer, to travel abroad for a few months, perhaps for a year, until conditions in Austria should stabilize. Radek would approach Inspector Strossmeyer for travel permits and passports 

             “How many, your Excellency?”

         “How many would you suggest Harr Radek?”

         “Five, your Excellency.”

         “Why five?”

         “One for yourself.”

         “Of course.”

         “Myself, Fraulein Leuger, her brothers to serve as coachmen and servants.”

         “Aren't you forgetting someone Karl?”

         “Sir?”

“Josef.”

             Radek smiled and bowed. “Respectfully sir, I don't think that would be wise.”

          Frederick sat back in his chair. As he examined an ivory letter opener he asked, “Why is that, Herr Radek?”

      Both he and Radek knew that it would not be wise. Neither man wished to mention the reason.  Instead Radek murmured, “we have no room for him, Excellency.”

     “He's not very big. We'll shift the luggage about. We'll squeeze him in somehow.”

     “Of course sir but revolutionaries infest the roads all the way between here and the Rhine.  These are very unsettled conditions. It wouldn't be safe for a child. He would be much safer in Marienberg. You can always send for him once conditions settle.”

      “I see.” Frederick placed the letter opener on the desk and began leafing through a pile of papers. "In all the reports that we've received from Inspector Strossmeyer I have not seen one about an attack upon travelers, least of all against children. Why would Josef be any safer alone in Marienberg than he would be with me?”

     “I'm only concerned for his safety, your Excellency.”

               “Of course. Still it is my wish that he come with me. He is my responsibility Karl, not yours. I was thinking that a party of three could travel much faster than a party of six. Don't you agree?”

     “Three… your Excellency?”

     “Yes. Myself, Josef and a footman. Fritz Neuman I think. He's a good man, trustworthy. I will leave Marienberg in your hands. Between you and the Leugers I know that my lands will remain safe. Don't you agree?”

       Radek smiled. “Of course your Excellency, if that is your wish but we have business affairs to handle, travel arrangements to make. … There is the question of your personal security.”

      “But if you're not here who will administer Marienberg”

“Herr Koch. He's young but a capable man.”             

     “He's not the man that you are Karl. I can't see you giving up Marienberg.”

     Radek bowed.  “My allegiance, sir, is to you, not to Marienberg. I swore to your father that I would serve you as I had served him. I was always at his side and I insist that I remain at yours.”

      “I see. Such loyalty is to be prized these days. Very well; a party of six in two coaches. We'll travel by road to Munich and on to Paris. We'll spend a few months there. Then we'll see what the situation is like back here.  If things are still unsettled,  we'll go on to England. Next spring we will be back here, if conditions have returned to normal.”

      “Best to travel straight on to London, your Excellency. Paris is a bit unstable.”

       Frederick grunted. “Paris is always unstable. Anyway we'll leave in two weeks time. That should give everyone sufficient time to pack and give Herr Koch enough time to assume the administration here. Agreed?”

       The details were not quite what Radek had wished.  Josef remained a questionable factor that he would have to deal with somewhere. However he had gained the most important point.  The road to Paris had been opened.   Once there he could persuade Frederick to move on to London and then to America. As for returning in the spring Fredrick would have nothing to which he could return. Austria was already disintegrating. One step at a time Radek told himself. He raised one last matter. “Sir, a silly question really, but suppose Josef should decide to …. disappear once we leave Austria.”

       “Why should he want to do that?”

       “It is a possibility sir”

       “Rubbish. The boy loves me. You have to learn to trust people more, Karl. You're too suspicious sometimes.”

       “Yes, your Excellency.”

       “As far as his legal position stands, he is a servant apprenticed to my service. Who would quarrel with that?”

     “No one, your Excellency.”

     “I should think not. That will be all, Karl.”

     At six-thirty a.m. on a Saturday morning, the twelfth of May, two coaches clattered out of Marienberg, just as the mist was clearing from the valley below.  The shades were drawn in both coaches. At Frederick's command no servants had gathered to say farewell. He had wanted a quiet leave taking. As the coach rattled over the

cobbled courtyard Frederick leaned back against the leather seat. Lifting the shade he peered back at the home he was leaving. “You don't know how much I hate that place, Josef.”

      Noting the look of concern on Josef''s face he patted the boy's hand. “Don't worry Josef. You're my pet. I'll always take care of you. Always.”

      Josef snuggled next to him, allowing Frederick to drape his arm around him. Always. He hated that word. Josef knew that he should feel happy. They were going to France, England and after that, to

 America.  However it all seemed so far away.  Katrina had told him that when he felt he could not go on with the pretending that he must think of America. At first it had been only a word. A group of letters strung together in his mind like the words in his books. Now it had become something more.  It meant an end to the shame, and to the memory of what he had done to the old priest.  He thought of the past seven months, of being in the bed of a man he hated.  He remembered being touched, of having to pretend that he liked it, of screaming always in silence so that only he himself could hear, never anyone else.

      Josef wished that he could be excited about going to America. He acted as if he were, at least in front of Katrina but all that he could think of was how long this would have to go on, the lying, the touching and the pain; going to Radek with Frederick’s whispered secrets after conferring with Katrina.   America would end it. Perhaps. For now he wanted only to sleep and to avoid looking at Frederick. Josef closed his eyes and tried to sleep but one word kept sounding in his mind. Always.

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Author's Note

Written in Canadian English