Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

his own mistaken tactics, his foolish trust, his ill-afforded deference. He’d focused on the Prince himself and paid far too little attention to those new figures around him—the woman’s family, the diplomats, the soldiers, the high- placed hangers-on—never thinking he’d be tearing the Prince away from them at pistol-point. He barely even knew who they were—far less what part in their plans had been laid aside for the easily dazzled Karl-Horst. All that had been the business of Flauss, the Envoy—which had either gone horribly wrong or…hadn’t. Svenson needed to report to Flauss on the Prince’s health, but he knew that he must use the interview with the Envoy to determine whether he was truly without allies in the diplomatic compound. He noticed his overcoat slung across the bedpost and folded it over his arm—heavier than it ought to be from the pistol tucked into the pocket. He looked around the room— nothing particularly dangerous should the Prince wake up in his absence. He pulled the bolt on the door and stepped into the hall. Next to the door stood a soldier in black, carbine at his side, stiffly at attention. Doctor Svenson locked the door with a large iron key and returned the key to his jacket pocket. The soldier’s attention did not waver as the Doctor walked past and down the hallway, nor did the Doctor think twice about the guard. He was used enough to these soldiers and their iron discipline—any question he had would be aimed at their officer, who was unaccountably still absent from the compound.

Svenson reached the end of the hall and stood on the landing, his gaze edging over the rail to the lobby three floors below. From above he could see the black and white checkerboard pattern of the marble floor—an optical illusion of staircases impossibly leading ever upwards and downwards to one another at the same time—with the crystal chandelier hovering above it. For Svenson, who did not like heights, just seeing the chandelier’s heavy chain suspended in the air before him gave him a whiff of vertigo. Looking up to the high top of the stairwell, where the chain was anchored above the fourth floor landing—which he could not help but do, like an ass—made him palpably dizzy. He stepped away from the rail and climbed to the third floor, walking close to the wall, his eyes on the floor. He was still staring at his feet as he walked past the guards at the landing and outside the Envoy’s door. With a quick grimace he squared his shoulders and knocked. Without waiting for an answer, he went in.

When Svenson had returned from the Institute with the Prince, Flauss had not been present—nor could anyone say where he’d gone. The Envoy had burst into the Prince’s room some forty minutes later—in the midst of the Doctor’s squalid efforts to purge his patient of any poison or narcotic—and imperiously demanded what Doctor Svenson thought he was doing. Before he could reply, Flauss had seen the revolver on the side table and then the marks on Karl-Horst’s face and began screaming. Svenson turned to see the Envoy’s face was white—with rage or fear he wasn’t sure—but the sight had snapped the last of his patience and he’d savagely driven Flauss from the room. Now, as he entered the office, he was keenly aware that of Conrad Flauss he actually knew precious little. A provincial aristocrat with pretensions toward the cosmopolitan, schooled for the law, an acquaintance of a royal uncle at university—all the qualifications required to meet the diplomatic needs of the Prince’s betrothal visit, and if a permanent embassy were to result from the marriage, as everyone hoped it would, to take over as the Duchy’s first full ambassador. To Flauss—to everyone—Svenson was a family retainer, a nurse-maid, essentially dismissible. Such perceptions generally suited the Doctor as well, creating that much less bother in his day. Now, however, he would be forced to make himself heard.

Flauss was behind his desk, writing, an aide standing patiently next to him, and looked up as Svenson entered. The Doctor ignored him and sat in one of the plush chairs opposite the desk, plucking a green glass ashtray from a side table as he went past and cradling it on his lap as he smoked. Flauss stared at him. Svenson stared back and flicked his eyes toward the aide. Flauss snorted, scrawled his name at the base of the page, blotted it, and shoved it into the aide’s hands. “That will be all,” he barked. The aide clicked his heels smartly and left the room, casting a discreet glance at the Doctor. The door closed softly behind him. The two men glared at each other. Svenson saw the Envoy gathering himself to speak, and sighed in advance with fatigue.

“Doctor Svenson, I will tell you that I am not…accustomed…to such treatment, such brutal treatment, by a member of the mission staff. As the mission Envoy—”

“I am not part of the mission staff,” said Svenson, cutting him off in an even tone.

Flauss sputtered. “I beg your pardon?”

“I am not part of the mission staff. I am part of the Prince’s household. I answer to that house.”

“To the Prince?” Flauss scoffed. “Between us, Doctor, the poor young man—”

“To the Duke.”

“I beg your pardon—I am the Duke’s Envoy. I answer to the Duke.”

“Then we have something in common after all,” Svenson muttered dryly.

“Are you insolent?” Flauss hissed.

Svenson didn’t answer for a moment, in order to increase what powers of intimidation he could muster. The fact was, whatever authority he claimed, he had no strength beyond his own body to back it up—all that rested with Flauss and Blach. If either were truly against him—and realized his weakness—he was extremely vulnerable. His only real hope was that they were not outright villains, but merely incompetent. He met the Envoy’s gaze and tapped his ash into the glass bowl.

“Do you know, Herr Flauss, why a young man in the prime of his life would need a doctor to accompany him to celebrate his engagement?”

Flauss snorted. “Of course I know. The Prince is unreliable and indulgent—I speak as one who cares for him deeply—and often unable to see the larger diplomatic implications of his actions. I believe it is a common condition among—”

“Where were you this evening?”

The Envoy’s mouth snapped shut, then worked for a moment in silence. He could not believe what he had just heard. He forced a wicked, condescending smile. “I beg your pardon—”

“The Prince was in grave danger. You were not here. You were not in any position to protect him.”

“Yes, and you will report to me concerning Karl-Horst’s medical condition—his—his face—the strange burns—”

“You have not answered my question…but you are going to.”

Flauss gaped at him.

“I am here on the direct instructions of his father,” continued Svenson.

“If we fail further in our duties—and I do include you in this, Herr Flauss—we will be held most strictly accountable. I have served the Duke directly for some years, and understand what that means. Do you?”

Doctor Svenson was more or less lying. The Prince’s father, the Duke, was an obese feather-headed man fixated on military uniforms and hunting. Doctor Svenson had met him twice at court, observing what he could with a general sense of dismay. His instructions truly came from the Duke’s Chief Minister, Baron von Hoern, who had become acquainted with the Doctor five years before, when Svenson was an officer-surgeon of the Macklenburg Navy and known primarily—if he was known at all—for treating the effects of frostbite among sailors of the Baltic fleet. A series of murders in port had caused a scandal—a cousin of Karl-Horst had been responsible—and Svenson had shown both acuity in tracing the deeds to their source and then tact in conveying this information to the Minister. Soon after he had been reassigned to von Hoern’s household and asked to observe or investigate various circumstances—diseases, pregnancy, murder, abortion—as they might arise at court, always without any reference to his master’s interest. To Svenson, for whom the sea was almost wholly associated with sorrow and exile, the opportunity to devote himself to such work—indeed, to the rigorous distractions of patriotism—had become a welcome sort of self-annihilation. His presence in Karl-Horst’s party had been attributed to the Duke easily enough, and Svenson had until this day remained in the background, reporting back as he could through cryptic letters stuffed into the diplomatic mail and from subtly insinuating cards sent through the city post, just in case his official letters were tampered with. He had done this before—brief sojourns in Finland, Denmark, and along the Rhine—but was really no kind of spy, merely an educated man likely, because of his position, both to gain access where he ought not and to be underestimated by those he observed. Such was the case here, and the tennis match of pettiness between Flauss and Blach had livened what otherwise seemed to be trivial child-minding. What troubled him, however, was that in the three weeks since their arrival—and despite regular dispatches to Flauss from court —Svenson had received no word whatsoever in return. It was as if Baron von Hoern had disappeared.

The idea of marriage had been considered after a continental tour by Lord Vandaariff, where the search for a sympathetic Baltic port had brought him to Macklenburg. His daughter had been a part of the entourage—her first time abroad—and as is so often the case when elders speak business, the children had been thrown together.