Tyll

Westphalia

I

She still walked erect as in the past. Her back almost always hurt, but she didn’t let it show and held the cane on which she had to prop herself up as if it were a fashionable accessory. She still resembled the paintings from long ago; indeed, enough of her beauty remained to fluster people who unexpectedly found themselves in her presence—as now, when she threw back her fur hood and looked around the anteroom with a firm gaze. At the arranged signal her lady’s maid behind her announced that Her Majesty the Queen of Bohemia wished to speak with the imperial ambassador.

She saw the lackeys casting glances at each other. Apparently the spies had failed this time, no one was prepared for her arrival. She had left her house at The Hague under a false name; her pass, issued by the States General of the United Dutch Provinces, identified her as Madame de Cournouailles. In the company of only the coachman and her lady’s maid she had traveled east through Bentheim, Oldenzaal, and Ibbenbüren, over fallow fields and through villages destroyed by fire, cleared forests, the never-changing landscapes of the war. There were no inns, so they had spent the nights in the coach, stretched out on the bench, which was dangerous, yet neither wolves nor marauders had taken an interest in the small coach of an old queen. And so they had reached the road from Münster to Osnabrück unmolested.

Immediately everything had been different. The meadows grew high. The houses had intact roofs. A stream turned the wheel of a mill. There were guard huts on the roadside, well-fed men with halberds standing outside them. The neutral zone. Here there was no war.

Outside the walls of Osnabrück a guard had come up to the coach window and had asked what their desire was. Wordlessly, Fräulein von Quadt, her lady’s maid, had handed him the pass, and without great interest he had looked at it and waved them on. The very first citizen on the roadside, a tidily dressed man with a well-trimmed beard, had shown them the way to the quarters of the imperial ambassador. There the coachman had lifted her and her lady’s maid out of the coach, carried them over the mucky ground, and put them down in front of the portal, their clothing unscathed. Two halberdiers had opened the doors for them. With an assurance as if she had rights over this household—according to ceremony established throughout Europe, even a visiting monarch was the master of the household everywhere—she had entered the antechamber, and her lady’s maid had demanded the ambassador.

The lackeys whispered and gave each other signs. Liz knew that she had to take advantage of the surprise. The thought must not form in any of these heads that it would be possible to turn her away.

She had not made a royal appearance in a long time. When you lived in a small house and were visited by no one but merchants trying to settle their bills, you didn’t often have the opportunity. But she was the grandniece of the Virgin Queen Elizabeth, the granddaughter of Mary, Queen of Scots, the daughter of James, the ruler of both kingdoms, and she had been trained since childhood in how a queen was to stand, to walk, and to look. This too was a craft, and once you’d learned it, you never forgot it.

The most important thing: don’t ask questions and don’t hesitate. No gesture of impatience, no movement that looked like doubt. Her parents and her poor Friedrich, who had now been dead so long that she had to look at portraits to remember his face, had stood so straight that it seemed as if no rheumatism, no weakness, and no worry could ever touch them.

After she had stood straight for a little while, surrounded by whispering and astonishment, she took one step and then another toward the gilded double doors. There were no other doors like this in the Westphalian provinces, someone must have brought them here from far away, just like the paintings on the walls and the carpets on the floor and the curtains of damask and the silk wallpaper and the many-armed candelabra and the two chandeliers, heavy with crystals, in which, even though it was broad daylight, every single candle burned. No duke and no prince, indeed not even Papa, would have transformed a residence in a small city into such a palace. It was the sort of thing only the King of France or the Kaiser did.

Without pausing, she walked toward the doors. Now she could not afford to hesitate. The briefest hint of uncertainty would be enough to remind the two lackeys standing to the right and the left of the doors that it was also entirely conceivable not to open them for her. If that should happen, her advance would be staved off. Then she would have to sit down on one of the plush chairs and someone would appear and tell her that the ambassador unfortunately had no time, but that his secretary would be able to see her in two hours, and she would protest, and the lackey would say coolly that he was sorry, and she would raise her voice, and the lackey would repeat it unimpressed, and she would raise her voice further, and more lackeys would gather, and thus she would all at once no longer be a queen but a complaining old woman in the anteroom.

That was why it had to work. There would be no second attempt. One had to move as if the door weren’t there, not be slowed down by it; one had to walk in such a way that if no one opened the doors, one would crash into them at full force, and since Quadt was following her at two paces’ distance, her lady’s maid would then crash into her back, and the humiliation would be unbearable—for that very reason, they would open them; that was the whole trick.

It worked. With confused expressions the lackeys reached for the handles and heaved open the doors. Liz stepped into the reception room. She turned around and gestured to Quadt with her hand not to follow any farther. That was unusual. A queen did not make visits unaccompanied. But this was not a normal situation. Taken aback, her lady’s maid stopped, and the lackeys closed the doors in front of her.

The room seemed huge. Perhaps it was due to the skillfully arranged mirrors, perhaps it was a trick of the Viennese court magicians. The room seemed so large that one couldn’t quite comprehend how the house could contain it. It stretched like a hall in a palace, and a sea of carpets separated Liz from a distant desk. Far beyond, open damask curtains revealed a suite of rooms, even more carpets, even more golden candleholders, even more chandeliers and paintings.

Behind the desk rose a gentleman of small stature with a gray beard, who looked so inconspicuous that it took Liz a moment to notice him. He took off his hat and gave a courtly bow.

“Welcome,” he said. “May I hope, madame, the journey was not arduous?”

“I am Elizabeth, Queen—”

“Forgive the interruption, it is only to spare Your Highness the trouble. Explanations not necessary; I am informed.”

It took her a while to understand what he had said. She drew a breath to ask him how he knew who she was, but again he was quicker.

“Because it is my profession, madame. To know things. And my duty to understand them.”

She furrowed her brow. She felt hot, which was partly due to the thick fur coat and partly due to the fact that she was not used to being interrupted. He now stood bent forward, one hand on the desk, the other on his back, as if afflicted by a sudden pain there. Quickly she walked toward one of the chairs in front of the desk. But as in a dream the room was so large and the desk so far away that it would take a long time before she reached it.

His addressing her as Your Highness meant that he did acknowledge her status as a member of the English royal family, but did not recognize her as Queen of Bohemia, for otherwise he would have had to address her as Your Majesty; indeed, he did not even recognize her as an electress, for then he would have called her Your Serene Highness, which might not be worth much at home in England but here in the Empire was worth more than even the royalty of a king’s child. And precisely because this man knew his trade, it was essential that she sit down before he invited her to, for whereas he naturally had to offer a princess a chair, in the case of a queen it was not his place to do so. Monarchs sat down uninvited, and everyone else stood until the monarch permitted them to sit.

“Would Your Highness—”

But since the chair was still far away, she interrupted him. “Am I speaking with him who I assume he is?”

This brought him up short for a moment. For one thing, because he had not expected her German to be so good. She had made good use of her time, she had not been idle over the years, she had taken lessons with a kind young German whom she had liked and with whom she almost could have fallen in love—often she had dreamed of him and once even drafted a letter to him, but such a thing was not possible, she could not afford a scandal. For another thing, he was silent because she had affronted him. An imperial ambassador was to be called Your Excellency—by everyone but a king or queen. He thus had to insist to her on a form of address that she could under no circumstances grant him. For this problem there was only one solution: someone like her and someone like him must never encounter each other.

When he began to speak, she darted sideways, went to a stool and sat down; she had beaten him to it. She enjoyed this small victory, leaned her cane against the wall, and interlaced her fingers in her lap. Then she saw his look.

She went icy cold. How could she have made such a mistake? It must have been because she had been out of practice for years. Of course she could neither remain standing nor let him invite her to sit, but a chair without a backrest, that should not have happened to her under any circumstances. As a queen, she was entitled to sit on a chair with a backrest and armrests even in the presence of the Kaiser, a mere armchair would be an indignity, but a stool was out of the question. And he had deliberately placed stools all around the reception room, yet only behind his desk was there an armchair.

What should she do? She smiled too and decided to pretend it was of no consequence. But he now had the advantage: All he needed to do was to call in the people from the anteroom, and word that she had sat on a stool in his presence would spread through Europe like wildfire. Even at home in England they would laugh.

“That depends,” he said, “on what Your Highness deigns to assume, but since it is not the place of Your Highness’s humble servant to assume that Your Highness could make anything but the correct assumption, I in turn do not hesitate to answer Your Highness’s question with yes. It is I, Johann von Lamberg, the Kaiser’s ambassador, at Your Highness’s service. A refreshment? Wine?”

This was another skillful injury of her royal dignity, for one offered nothing to a monarch—he had rights over the household, it was up to him to demand what he wanted. Such things were not unimportant. For three years the ambassadors had negotiated only matters of who had to bow before whom and who had to take off his hat first before whom. He who made a mistake in etiquette could not win. So she ignored his offer, which was not easy for her, because she was very thirsty. She sat motionless on her stool and gazed at him. She was good at that. She had learned to sit calmly, she was practiced in it—in this, at least, no one surpassed her.

Lamberg was still standing bent forward, one hand on the desk, the other on his back. He was doing so apparently so that he would not have to decide whether to sit down or remain standing: In the presence of a queen he would not be permitted to sit, but before a princess it would be a violation of etiquette for an imperial ambassador to stand when she was sitting. Since, as the Kaiser’s ambassador, he did not recognize Liz’s royal title, it would be consistent to sit down—but at the same time also a severe insult, which he avoided in this way, out of politeness and because he did not yet know what weapons and offers she had in her hands.

“With Your Highness’s kind permission, a question.”

All at once his manner of speaking was just as unpleasant to her as his Austrian intonation.

“As Your Highness knows very well, we are in the midst of a diplomatic congress. Since the beginning of the negotiations, no royal personage has set foot in Münster and Osnabrück. As delighted as Your Highness’s faithful servant is to have the privilege of welcoming Your Highness’s gracious visit to his poor domicile, he nonetheless fears just as much—” he sighed as if it caused him great sorrow to say so—“that it is not proper.”

“The count means we should have sent an ambassador too.”

He smiled again. She knew what he was thinking and she knew that he knew that she knew it: you are no one, you live in a small house, you’re buried in debt, you’re not sending any ambassadors to congresses.

“I’m not even here,” said Liz. “That way we can talk to each other, can’t we? The count can imagine he is talking to himself. He is speaking in his head, and in his head I reply to him.”

She felt something she had not expected. For so long she had been making preparations for this encounter, mulling it over, fearing it, and now that the day had arrived, something strange was happening: she was enjoying it! All those years in the small house, far from notable people and important events—all at once she was again sitting as if on a stage, surrounded by gold and silver and carpets, and speaking with a clever person before whom every word counted.

“We all know that the Palatinate is a perpetual point of contention,” she said. “As is the Palatine electoral dignity, which was held by my late husband.”

He chuckled.

This flustered her. But that was his aim, of course, and for that very reason she had to persevere.

“The electors of the Empire,” she said, “will not accept the Bavarian House of Wittelsbach keeping the electoral dignity of which the Kaiser wrongfully stripped my husband. If Caesar can dispossess one of us, they will say, then he can do it to all of us. And if we—”

“With Your Highness’s kind permission, they have long since accepted it. Your Highness’s husband was placed, along with Your Highness yourself, under the imperial ban, which, incidentally, anywhere else would obligate me to have Your Highness arrested.”

“Which is why we have come here and not anywhere else.”

“With Your Highness’s kind permission—”

“We grant it, but first we shall be heard. The Duke of Bavaria, who calls himself Elector, illegally bears our husband’s title. The Kaiser has no right to revoke an electoral dignity. The electors elect the Kaiser, the Kaiser does not elect the electors. But we understand the situation. The Kaiser owes the Bavarians money; the Bavarians, in turn, have the Catholic estates firmly in their hands. That is why we are making an offer. We are the crowned Queen of Bohemia, and the crown—”

“With Your Highness’s kind permission, for one winter thirty—”

“…will pass to our son.”

“Bohemia’s crown is not hereditary. If it were, the Bohemian estates would not have been able to offer the throne to the Palsgrave Friedrich, Your Highness’s husband. The fact that he accepted the crown means that he knew that Your Highness’s son could assert no claim.”

“One can see it that way, but must one? Perhaps England will not see it that way. If he asserts claims, England will support them.”

“There’s a civil war in England.”

“There is, and if our brother is deposed by the parliament, the English crown will be offered to our son.”

“That is unlikely at best.”

Outside, trombones blared: a tinny call, which rose, hung for a while in the air, and died away. Liz raised her eyebrows questioningly.

“Longueville, my French colleague,” said Lamberg. “He has them blow a fanfare when he sits down to eat. Every day. He is here with a retinue of six hundred men. Four portrait painters are entrusted with the sole task of painting him. Three woodcarvers are crafting busts of him. What he does with those remains a state secret.”

“Has the count asked him?”

“We are not authorized to speak to each other.”

“Is that not a hindrance to negotiation?”

“We are not here as friends, nor to become friends. The ambassador of the Vatican mediates between us, just as the ambassador of Venice mediates between me and the Protestants, for the ambassador of the Vatican is in turn not authorized to speak to Protestants. I must now take my leave, madame, the honor of this conversation is as great as it is undeserved, but pressing duties make demands on my time.”

“An eighth electoral dignity.”

He looked up. His eyes met hers for only a moment. Then he looked at the desk again.

“The Bavarian shall keep his electoral dignity,” said Liz. “We formally relinquish Bohemia. And if—”

“With Your Highness’s kind permission, Your Highness cannot relinquish something that does not belong to Your Highness.”

“The Swedish army is standing outside Prague. The city will soon be back in the hands of the Protestants.”

“Should Sweden take the city, Sweden will certainly not give it to you.”

“The war is nearly over. Then there will be an amnesty. Then the breach…the alleged breach of the imperial peace by our husband will be pardoned.”

“The amnesty has long since been negotiated. All acts of the war will be pardoned with the exception of one person’s.”

“I can guess whose.”

“This endless war began with Your Highness’s husband. With a palsgrave who set his sights too high. I’m not saying that Your Highness is to blame, but I can imagine that the daughter of the great James did not exactly try to urge her ambitious husband to be modest.” Lamberg slowly pushed his chair back and straightened up. “The war has been going on so long that most people alive today have never seen peace. That only the old can still remember peace. My colleagues and I—yes, even the idiot who has fanfares played when he sits down to eat—are the only ones who can end it. Everyone wants territories that the others would under no circumstances part with, everyone demands subsidies, everyone wants mutual-assistance pacts terminated that the others consider permanent, so that instead new pacts result that others find unacceptable. All this is beyond the abilities of any human being. And yet we must succeed. You and your husband began this war, madame. I shall end it.”

He pulled a silk cord over the desk. Liz heard the sound of a bell from the next room. Now he is summoning a secretary, she thought, some gray cipher who will usher me out. She felt dizzy. The room seemed to rise and sink as if she were on a ship. Never before had someone spoken to her that way.

A ray of light captivated her. It fell through a thin crack between the curtains, specks of dust whirling in it, a mirror on the opposite wall catching it and casting it to the other wall, where it made a spot on a picture frame gleam. The painting was by Rubens: a tall woman, a man with a lance, above them a bird in the azure. A hovering serenity emanated from it. She remembered Rubens well, a sad man, who audibly had difficulty breathing. She had wanted to buy one of his paintings, but it had been too expensive for her; nothing seemed to interest him except money. But how had he been able to paint like that?

“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.

The fellow goggled stupidly. Of course, no one had told him that there was a Queen of Bohemia, he was young, he didn’t know anything, and he didn’t want to risk making a mistake. Who could blame him?

But she couldn’t just sit down either. A queen didn’t wait in the anteroom until someone had time for her. There were indeed good reasons for crowned heads not to travel to a diplomatic congress. But what else should she have done? Her son, for whose electoral dignity she was fighting, was far too imperious and naive, he would certainly have ruined everything. And she didn’t have diplomats.

She stood as motionless as the lackey. The murmuring swelled. She heard loud laughter. Do not turn red, she thought, not under any circumstances. Just do not turn red!

She thanked God with all her heart when someone opened the door from the other side. A head slid through the crack. One eye was higher than the other, the nose was set below them at a strange angle, the lips were full but did not quite seem to fit together. From his chin hung a stringy goatee.

“Your Majesty,” said the face.

Liz stepped in, and the uneven man quickly closed the door again, as if he wanted to avoid others pressing after her.

“Alvise Contarini, at your service,” he said in French. “Ambassador of the Republic of Venice. I am the mediator here. Come with me.”

He led her through a narrow corridor. Here too the walls were bare, but the carpet was exquisite and—Liz could tell; she had, after all, furnished two castles—of inestimable value.

“A word in advance,” said Contarini. “The greatest difficulty is still that France demands that the imperial line of the House of Austria no longer support the Spanish line. This would not matter to Sweden, but because of the high subsidies that Sweden has received from France, the Swedes must adopt the demand as their own. The Kaiser remains categorically against it. As long as this has not been settled, we will obtain no signature from any of the three crowns.”

Liz tilted her head and smiled inscrutably, as she had done all her life when she didn’t understand something. Probably, she thought, he didn’t want anything in particular from her and was simply used to talking. There were people like that in every court.

They reached the end of the corridor. Contarini opened the door and, with a bow, let her go first. “Your Majesty, the Swedish ambassadors. Count Oxenstierna and Dr. Adler Salvius.”

Disconcerted, she looked around. There they sat, one in the right corner of the reception room, the other in the left, in armchairs of equal size, as if placed by a painter. In the middle of the room was another chair with armrests. When Liz stepped toward it, both men rose and bowed deeply. Liz sat down. The men remained standing. Oxenstierna was a heavy man with full cheeks. Salvius was tall and thin and looked above all very tired.

“Your Majesty paid Lamberg a visit?” Salvius asked in French.

“You know that?”

“Osnabrück is small,” said Oxenstierna. “Your Majesty knows that this is a diplomatic congress? No princes, no rulers, and—”

“I know,” she said. “I’m actually not here either. And the reason I’m not here is the electoral dignity that rightfully belongs to my family. If I am correctly informed, Sweden supports our claim to a restitution of the title.” It did her good to speak French. The words came more quickly, the phrases strung themselves together. It seemed to her as if the language itself were forming the sentences. She would have liked best to speak English, of course, the rich, supple, and singing language of her home, the language of theater and poetry, but almost no one here understood it. Nor was there an English ambassador in Osnabrück; ultimately Papa had sacrificed her and Friedrich to keep his country out of the war.

She waited. No one spoke.

“Isn’t that right?” she finally asked. “That Sweden supports our claim, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“In principle,” said Salvius.

“If Sweden insists on a restitution of our royal title, my son for his part will offer to relinquish this very restitution, provided that in return the imperial court promises us in a secret agreement to create an eighth electoral dignity.”

“The Kaiser cannot create a new electoral dignity,” said Oxenstierna. “He has no right to.”

“If the estates give it to him, he has it,” said Liz.

“But they are not permitted to,” said Oxenstierna. “Besides, we want much more.”

“A new electoral dignity would be in the Catholic interest, because Bavaria would keep the electoral dignity. And it would be in the Protestant interest, because our side would get an additional Protestant elector.”

“Perhaps,” said Salvius.

“Never,” said Oxenstierna.

“The lords are both right,” said Contarini.

Liz looked at him questioningly.

“It can’t be helped,” Contarini said in German. “They must both be right. The one is close to his father, the chancellor, and wants to keep waging war, the other was sent by the queen to make peace.”

“What did you say?” asked Oxenstierna.

“I quoted a German saying.”

“Bohemia is not part of the Empire,” said Oxenstierna. “We cannot include Prague in the negotiations. That would have had to be negotiated first. Before you negotiate, you always have to negotiate what you are actually going to negotiate.”

“On the other hand,” said Salvius, “Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden—”

“Her Majesty is inexperienced, and my father is her guardian. And he says that—”

“Was.”

“Excuse me?”

“The queen is of age.”

“Has just come of age. My father, the chancellor, is Europe’s most experienced statesman. Ever since our great Gustav Adolf drew his last breath in Lützen—”

“Since then we have hardly won anymore. Without the help of the French we would have been lost.”

“Do you mean to say—”

“Who am I to diminish the merits of His Excellency your father, the Lord High Chancellor and Count, but I am of the opinion—”

“But perhaps your opinion doesn’t count for much, Dr. Salvius, perhaps the opinion of the second ambassador is not—”

“The chief negotiator.”

“Appointed by the queen. Whose guardian, however, is my father!”

“Was. Your father was her guardian!”

“Perhaps we can agree that Her Majesty’s proposal is worthy of consideration,” said Contarini. “We do not have to say that we will accept it, we do not even have to promise to consider the proposal, but we can still all agree that the proposal might be worthy of our consideration.”

“That’s not enough,” said Liz. “As soon as Prague is conquered, an official demand must be issued to Count Lamberg to restore my son to the Bohemian throne. Then my son will immediately make a secret agreement with him to the effect that he relinquishes it, provided that he in turn makes a secret agreement with Sweden and France regarding the eighth electoral dignity. This must happen quickly.”

“Nothing happens quickly,” said Contarini. “I have been here since the beginning of the negotiations. I thought that I would not be able to stand one month in this horrible rainy backwater. In the meantime, five years have passed.”

“I know what it’s like to grow old while waiting,” said Liz. “And I will wait no longer. If Sweden does not demand the Bohemian crown, so that my son can relinquish it in exchange for the electoral dignity, we will relinquish the electoral dignity. Then you will have nothing left with which to gain an eighth electoral dignity. It would be the end of our dynasty, but I would simply go back to England. I would like to be home again. I would like to go to the theater again.”

“I would like to be home in Venice too,” said Contarini. “I would like to be doge one day.”

“If Your Majesty would permit me to inquire,” said Salvius. “So that I may understand. You have come here to demand something that we would never have pursued on our own. And your threat is: if we don’t do what you want, then you will retract your demand? What is one to call such a maneuver?”

Liz smiled her most mysterious smile. Now she really was sorry that she wasn’t standing at the edge of a stage, facing the semidarkness of an auditorium, where the audience listened spellbound. She cleared her throat, and even though she already knew her reply, for the sake of a stronger effect on the spectators who weren’t there, she pretended she had to think.

“I suggest,” she finally said, “you call it politics.”

III

The next day, the last of her stay in Osnabrück, Liz left her room at the inn early in the afternoon to make her way to the bishop’s reception. No one had invited her, but she had heard that everyone who mattered would be there. Tomorrow at this time she would already be on the way back, through ravaged landscapes, to her small house at The Hague.

She could not prolong her stay. She had to depart, not merely due to the lack of money, but also because she knew the rules of a good drama: a deposed queen who suddenly appeared and then disappeared—something like that made an impression. But a deposed queen who appeared and then stayed until people got used to her and began to make jokes about her—that would not do. She had learned this in Holland, where she and Friedrich had once been so kindly welcomed and where in the meantime the members of the States General were always otherwise engaged just when she asked for a meeting.

This reception would be her last appearance. She had made her proposals, had said what she had to say. There was nothing more she could do for her son.

Unfortunately, he came after her brother and was a real lout. Both of them resembled Papa, but they had nothing of his sly intelligence. They were space-filling, self-important men with deep voices and broad shoulders and sweeping movements, who were mad about hunting. Over in her native land her brother would probably lose his war against the parliament, and her son, should he actually become elector, would hardly go down in history as a great ruler. He was already thirty years old, thus no longer young, and currently he was roaming around somewhere in England, probably hunting, while she was negotiating for him in Westphalia. His rare letters to her were brief, with a coolness that was not far from hostility.

And as always when she thought of him, the image of the other one took shape in her: her beautiful son, her clever and radiant firstborn, who had had his father’s kind soul and her intellect—her pride, her joy and hope. When his image arose in her, it bore various faces, all at the same time: she saw him as he had been at three months old, at twelve years old, at fourteen. And then she felt that other image looming up, which every thought of him brought with it and because of which she strove to think of him as little as possible: the capsizing boat, the black maw of the river. She knew how it felt to swallow water by mistake when swimming, but drowning? She couldn’t imagine it.

Osnabrück was tiny, and she could have walked from the inn. Yet the streets were dirty even by German standards, and besides, how would it have looked?

So she had herself lifted into the coach again, leaned back, and watched the narrow gabled houses jerking past. Her lady’s maid sat silently beside her. She was used to being ignored by Liz and never spoke to her unless spoken to. To act like a piece of furniture was the only thing a lady’s maid really had to be able to do. It was cold, and a fine drizzle fell. Nonetheless the sun could be made out as a pale spot behind the clouds. The rain cleared the air of the smell of the streets. Children ran by. She saw a group of city soldiers on horses, then a donkey cart with sacks of flour. Now they were turning toward the main square. Over there was the residence of the imperial ambassador where she had been the day before. In the middle of the square was a block the height of a man with holes for head and arms. Just last month, the innkeeper had told her, a witch had stood here. The judge had been lenient: she was granted her life and after ten days in the pillory driven from the city.

The cathedral was bulky and German, a disastrous monstrosity, one tower thicker than the other. Attached to its side was an oblong house with massive cornices and a pointed roof. Several coaches were blocking the square, so that Liz could not drive up. Her coachman had to stop at some distance and carry her to the entrance portal. He smelled bad, and the rain wet her fur coat, but at least he didn’t drop her.

Somewhat ungently he put her down. She leaned on her cane so that she wouldn’t lose her balance. At moments like this she felt her age. She threw back her fur hood and thought: my last appearance. A tingling excitement filled her, as it hadn’t in years. The coachman went back to get her lady’s maid, but Liz didn’t wait, instead entering alone.

Even in the entrance hall she could hear music. She stopped and listened.

“His Imperial Majesty has sent us the best string players of the court.”

Lamberg was wearing a cloak of dark purple. Around his neck he had the necklace of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Beside him stood Wolkenstein. The two of them took off their hats and bowed. Liz nodded to Wolkenstein. He smiled at her.

“Your Highness is departing tomorrow,” said Lamberg.

It irritated her that it didn’t sound like a question but like an order.

“As always, the count is well informed.”

“Never as well as I would like to be. But I promise Your Highness that you will not easily hear music like this elsewhere. Vienna would like to show the congress its favor.”

“Because Vienna is losing on the battlefield?”

He acted as if he hadn’t heard the question. “And so the court has sent its best musici and eminent actors and its best entertainer. Your Highness paid the Swedes a visit?”

“The count really knows everything.”

“And now Your Highness also knows that the Swedes are at odds with each other.”

Outside, trombones were played. Lackeys flung open the doors. A man flashing with jewels came in, a woman with a long train and a diadem on his arm. As he passed, the man cast Lamberg a not unfriendly glance. Lamberg inclined his head so slightly that it was not quite a nod.

“France?” asked Liz.

Lamberg nodded.

“Has the count sent our proposal to Vienna?” she asked.

Lamberg did not answer. She couldn’t tell whether he had heard her question.

“Or is that not necessary? Does the count have the authority to decide on his own?”

“A decision of the Kaiser is always a decision of the Kaiser and no one else. And now I must take my leave of Your Highness. Even under the protection of a false name it is not proper for your faithful servant to continue to converse with Your Highness.”

“Because we are under the imperial ban, or because your wife will be jealous?”

Lamberg chuckled. “With Your Highness’s permission, Count Wolkenstein will escort you into the hall.”

Wolkenstein bent his arm, Liz laid her hand on the back of his hand, and they went in with measured steps.

“Are they all ambassadors here?” she asked.

“All of them. Only not everyone is permitted to greet everyone, let alone talk to everyone. Everything is strictly regulated.”

“Is Count Wolkenstein permitted to talk to me?”

“Absolutely not. But I am permitted to walk with you. And I will tell my grandchildren about it. And I will write about it. The Queen of Bohemia, I will write, the legendary Elizabeth, the…”

“Winter Queen?”

“Fair phoenix bride, I was about to say.”

“The count can speak English?”

“A little.”

“And has read John Donne?”

“Not much. But I have read the beautiful song in which he urges Your Highness’s father to finally support the King of Bohemia: No man is an island.”

She looked up. The reception hall had the amateurish ceiling frescoes commonly seen in German lands—usually the work of a second-class Italian artist who had never made it in Florence. A ledge bore statues of serious-looking saints. Two of them held lances, two held crosses, one clenched his fists, one held a crown. Below the ledge, torches were mounted, and in four large chandeliers burned dozens of candles, multiplied by mirrors. At the rear wall stood six musicians: four violinists, one harpist, and one holding a strange horn unlike any Liz had ever seen before.

She listened. Even in Whitehall she had heard nothing like it. One violin made a melody rise from the depths, another violin took it up, gave the melody clarity and force, and passed it on to the third, while the fourth violin played around it with a second, lighter melody. Suddenly the two melodies merged and were taken up by the harp, which now came to the fore, while the violins, as if in a quiet conversation, had already found a new melody—and at that very moment the harp gave them back the other melody, and the two melodies coalesced, and above them soared the joyful cry of a third melody, steely and pulsating, the voice of the horn.

Then it was silent. The piece had been short, but it felt as if it had lasted much longer, as if it had borne its own time in itself. A few listeners clapped hesitantly. Others stood still and seemed to have turned their ears inward.

“On the way here they played for us every evening,” said Wolkenstein. “The tall one there is named Hans Kuchner, he comes from the village of Hagenbrunn, he never went to school and can hardly speak, but the Lord has blessed him.”

“Your Majesty!”

A couple had come up to her: a gentleman with an angular face and a large jaw, a lady on his arm who looked as if she were freezing.

Liz was sorry to see that Wolkenstein, who was apparently forbidden even to take notice of the man’s presence, took a step back, folded his hands behind his back, and turned away. The man bowed, the woman gave a courtly curtsy.

“Wesenbeck,” he said, pronouncing the crack at the end of his name so harshly that it sounded like a small explosion. “Second envoy of the Elector of Brandenburg. At Your Majesty’s service.”

“How nice,” said Liz.

“Demanding an eighth electoral dignity. Quite bold!”

“We have demanded nothing. I am a weak woman. Women do not negotiate and do not make demands. My son for his part currently has no title that would permit him to demand anything. We can only relinquish. I have offered this in all humility. No one else can relinquish Bohemia’s crown, we alone can do that, and we will do it in exchange for the electoral dignity. Demanding the crown for us is what the Protestant imperial estates must do.”

“Us, that is.”

Liz smiled.

The envoy nodded thoughtfully.

And all at once the thought came to her that she had not yet dared to think. It would work! When she had had the idea of renting the coach, traveling to Osnabrück, and intervening in the negotiations, it had at first struck her as a completely absurd whim. It had taken her almost a year to begin to trust herself and a further year to really set it in motion. But at bottom she had expected all along that they would laugh at her.

Now, however, standing opposite the man with the large jaw, she realized confusedly that it could actually succeed: the electoral title for her son. I was not a good mother to you, she thought, and I probably loved you scarcely as much as I should have, but there is one thing I have done for you: I did not go back to England, I stayed in the small house and pretended it was a royal court in exile, and I have refused all men after the death of your poor father, although many wanted me, even very young ones, for I was a legend and beautiful to boot—but I knew that there must be no scandal, for the sake of our claim, and I never forgot it for a moment.

“We’re counting on you,” she said. Had she struck the right tone, or was that too solemn? But he had such a large jaw, and his eyebrows were so bushy, and when he had said his name, tears had almost come to his eyes. For him the lofty tone was probably appropriate. “We’re counting on Brandenburg.”

He gave a bow. “Then count on Brandenburg.”

His wife was regarding Liz with an icy gaze. In the hope that the conversation was now over, Liz looked around for Wolkenstein, but he was no longer to be seen. And now the Brandenburg couple too had moved on with deliberate steps.

She was standing alone. The musicians began anew. Liz counted the beats and recognized the latest fashionable dance, a minuet. Two lines formed, the gentlemen here, the ladies over there. The lines moved away from each other, then they walked toward each other. Partners took each other by the gloved hands. After a spin, they separated, the lines moved away from each other, and everything was repeated, while the music varied the previous theme lightly and liltingly: apart, together, spin, apart. In the notes vibrated longing, which you could feel without understanding whom or what it was directed at. There was the French ambassador stepping beside Count Oxenstierna: the two of them did not look at each other, but they moved, carried by the beat, in step. There was Contarini, whose lady was very young, an enchantingly slender beauty, and there was Wolkenstein, his eyes half closed, abandoning himself to the music, and apparently no longer thinking about her.

She was sorry that she could not participate. She had always liked to dance, but all she had left was her rank, and it was too high to fit into one of the lines. Besides, she could hardly move, her fur coat was too thick for a hall heated up by so many torches, nor could she take it off easily, because the dress she was wearing underneath was too simple. This ermine coat was all that remained of her old wardrobe, everything else having been pawned and sold. She had always wondered why she had kept it. Now she knew.

The lines came back together, but all at once there was disorder. Someone was standing in the middle of the hall and apparently making no move to get out of the dancers’ way. At the edges they were still moving to the music—there was Salvius, over there the Brandenburg envoy’s wife—yet in the middle the lines could no longer merge: Dancers crashed into each other, dancers lost their balance, everyone was trying to get past the standing man. He was scrawny, his cheeks hollow, his chin very sharp, a scar on his forehead. He was wearing a pied jerkin and baggy breeches and fine leather shoes. On his head was a colorful cap and bells. Now he began to juggle too: steel things flew into the air, first two, then three, then four, then five.

It took a moment, but then everyone realized at once: those were blades! People shrank back, men ducked, ladies covered their faces protectively with their hands. But the curved daggers kept returning to his hands, right side up, always with the handle at the bottom, while he now began to dance too—with small steps, forward and back, at first slowly, then more quickly, which in turn changed the music, for he did not follow it but it him. No one else was dancing anymore, they had made room to see better how he whirled around himself, while the flashing blades flew higher and higher. This was now no longer a deliberate, elegant dance, but a wild hurtling toward a breathless, galloping beat, which grew faster and faster.

Then he began to sing. His voice was high and tinny, but he hit the right notes and did not lose his breath. His words could not be understood. It was probably a language he had invented. And yet it seemed as if you knew what it was about: you understood it even though you could not have put it into words.

Now there were fewer daggers in the air. Only four left, now only three—one after the other was stuck in his belt.

A scream went through the hall. The green skirt of a lady, it was Contarini’s wife, was suddenly speckled with red. Apparently one of the blades had grazed the palm of his hand, but you could see nothing of it in his face. Laughing, he hurled the last dagger so high that it flew through the arms of a chandelier without touching a single crystal, and as it whirled down, he caught it and put it away. The music stopped. He bowed.

Applause broke out. “Tyll!” someone shouted. “Bravo, Tyll!” someone else exclaimed. “Bravo! Bravo!”

The musicians began to play again. Liz felt dizzy. It was so hot in the hall, due to the many candles, and her fur was much too thick. On the right side of the entrance hall a door was open. Behind it a spiral staircase led upward. She hesitated. Then she went up.

The staircase was so steep that she stopped twice, gasping for breath. She propped herself up against the wall. Briefly, everything went black, her knees were weak, and she thought she would fall down. Then she recovered her strength, pulled herself together, and continued climbing. Finally she reached a small balcony.

She threw back her hood and leaned against the stone balustrade. Down below was the main square. To her right, the towers of the cathedral rose into the sky. The sun must have just set. A fine drizzle still filled the air.

Down below in the twilight a man crossed the square. It was Lamberg. He walked bent forward, with small, dragging steps, toward his residence. The purple cloak flapped languidly around his shoulders. For a moment he stood slumped outside the door. He seemed to be reflecting. Then he went in.

She closed her eyes. The cold air did her good.

“How is my donkey?” she asked.

“He’s writing a book. And you, little Liz?”

She opened her eyes. He was standing next to her, resting on the balustrade. A cloth was tied around his hand.

“You are well preserved,” he said. “You’ve grown old, but your mind is not yet weak, and you even still make a good impression.”

“You too. Only the cap doesn’t suit you.”

He raised his unwounded hand and played with the little bells. “The Kaiser wants me to wear it, because that’s how I was drawn in a brochure he likes. I had you brought to Vienna, he said to me, now you should also look the way people know you.”

She pointed questioningly at his wrapped-up hand.

“In front of distinguished lords and ladies I always miss. Then they give more money.”

“What is the Kaiser like?”

“Like everyone. At night he sleeps, and he likes when people are nice to him.”

“And where is Nele?”

He was silent for a moment, as if he had to remember whom she was talking about. “She got married,” he said. “A long time ago.”

“Peace is coming, Tyll. I will return home. Across the sea, to England. Do you want to come with me? I’ll give you a warm room, and you won’t go hungry. Even when you one day are no longer able to perform.”

He said nothing. So many flakes had mingled with the raindrops that there was no longer any doubt—it was snowing.

“For old times’ sake,” she said. “You know as well as I do that the Kaiser will sooner or later grow annoyed with you. Then you will be on the street again. You’d have it better with me.”

“Are you offering me charity, little Liz? A daily soup and a thick blanket and warm slippers until I die in my bed?”

“That’s not so bad.”

“But do you know what’s better? Even better than dying in one’s bed?”

“Tell me.”

“Not dying, little Liz. That is much better.”

She turned to the staircase. From the hall below she heard shouts and laughter and music. When she turned back to him, he was gone. Astonished, she bent over the balustrade, but the square lay in darkness, and Tyll was nowhere to be seen.

If it kept snowing like this, she thought, tomorrow everything would be covered with white, and the return journey to The Hague might be difficult. Wasn’t it far too early in the year for snow? Probably some unfortunate person would soon be standing in the pillory down there for this.

And yet it’s because of me, she thought. I am the Winter Queen!

She leaned her head back and opened her mouth as wide as she could. She hadn’t done this in a long time. The snow was still as sweet and cold as it had been when she was a girl. And then, to taste it better, and only because she knew that in the darkness no one could see her, she stuck her tongue out.