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"Yes, Your Highness."
"Of course, Your Highness."
"No, Your Highness."
That was all Michael Fredersdorf managed to say to his newest employer, as the Prince paced back and forth in his antechamber. They were about to leave for Berlin, where the royal family awaited them. It would be Friedrich's first visit home since his release from prison earlier this year.
Prince Friedrich wasn't customarily short on bravado and eye-rolling when it came to his father. Even under confinement at Küstrin, he'd had plenty to say on the subject of Friedrich Wilhelm's hatred of music, learning, French, civilization, and, in short, everything that made life worth living. But the prospect of seeing the King in person again was giving him an ulcer.
"If anyone asks," he instructed Fredersdorf, his words tumbling over each other, "you're just a lackey, and you don't play the flute. Not even if it's someone sympathetic asking. I can't risk the King finding out and taking you away. And don't pack my flute, or any of the sheet music. Or yours." The orders kept coming. The Bible and a religious tract on top, in case of spies, and the Metamorphoses on the bottom--no, better make that a smaller volume. Vergil's Eclogues. The red dressing gown--never mind, not safe--or, come to think of it, he could wear it on his last day. "Which reminds me, pack a pair of gloves but put them at the bottom and don't admit they're there. My father doesn't approve."
Fredersdorf's head spun. A temporary demotion? Pack what? Then he mentally set aside all the details for later. The only thing that mattered was the way Friedrich's voice had wavered when he said not to bring their flutes. The flute was his passion, his life, the thing that kept him going when he didn't see a point in getting up in the morning. How he'd survived in the early days of his imprisonment, deprived of even that, Fredersdorf didn't know, except that when you cut down to the bedrock of Friedrich's soul, you found something that could not break.
"Yes, sir." While he racked his brains to think of something that he could do or say to make the encounter between father and son less painful, the Prince visibly struggled with something he wanted to say but couldn't bring himself to.
Finally, Friedrich forced out the words. "Maybe I shouldn't bring you. If he finds out you play for me…"
At the despair in his eyes, Fredersdorf had to say something.
"We'll be careful, Your Highness. I'll keep my head down, and I promise not to take any undue risks." Fredersdorf made his voice firm. He didn't want the Prince going back into the lion's den without him, any more than the Prince wanted to go without him.
Not entirely to his surprise, his words acted as a spur, goading Friedrich back into his frenzy. "Normally, I would be the one taking risks, playing in secret, you know me. What haven't I done, even when he hit me or locked me up for it? But he took Katte from me, and before that, Keith, and he took my sister--I can't lose you too."
Fredersdorf's heart stuttered at the comparison. It was high praise, but that was some heady company. One executed, one still trying to elude execution, the third lucky only to have been beaten and threatened until she was married off against her will.
Still, this position was worth fighting for.
"I won't let us be separated, sir. You have my word."
At those words, Friedrich stopped halfway across the room and turned to face him. The Prince had the eyes of a veteran, who'd seen far more than his twenty-one years, and the changeable mouth of a child, which Fredersdorf had seen shift from hurt to defiant to sardonic in the passing of one second to the next.
"You mean that?" Friedrich bit his lip. "Even if he put me under lock and guard again, even if he forced me to give up the throne? You'd stay?"
Sometimes Friedrich made Fredersdorf wish he were as good with words as he was with music, but maybe finding the right ones didn't matter so much as meaning them. It would be easier if he could put his arms around Friedrich, but of course he couldn't. So he said the first thing that came to mind. "Even if he banished you to the furthest wastelands of Lapland, I'd not only find a way there, I'd keep my fingers warm enough to play for you. Whatever it took."
That brought the smile Fredersdorf had been looking for.
"It's only for a few days," Friedrich finally reminded himself. "We can hold out without music for a few days." His bearing, like his voice, was calmer now.
"And Your Highness will get to see the Princess Wilhelmine."
"And I'll get to see my sister," Friedrich agreed, on a long sigh.
Wilhelmine sat in her mother's circle of women, embroidering mindlessly and counting down the hours and minutes until she could see her brother. It wasn't enough that she'd traveled all the way from Bayreuth to Berlin, and the King only allowed her brother a short visit to overlap with hers. No, she had to spend most of their visit with her parents, suffering through their fighting and their scolding. Worst of all was the seething resentment of her mother, which had only intensified when she lost the battle over who her two oldest children would marry.
"If you loved me like a true daughter, you wouldn't have done this" was the least of her denunciations.
It had taken Wilhelmine much explaining and pleading that she hadn't married into Bayreuth out of defiance, before the Queen would even consent to admit her to her gathering of friends and ladies-in-waiting. She clearly still saw the marriage as a personal betrayal, but after an acceptable amount of groveling, she was willing to let her daughter sit in the room so she could hear at length just how unhappy she had made her mother.
The only reprieve Wilhelmine got from the constant reproaches for marrying her father's choice of a German prince, instead of her mother's choice of an English-German prince, was when the Queen decided the more important topic was Friedrich agreeing to marry his father's choice of a German princess. Friedrich, of course, didn't take the blame for this. Friedrich was the golden child who could do no wrong.
It was Elisabeth Christine, his intended, who bore the brunt of the Queen's vitriol. Sophia Dorothea described her with great pleasure as slow-witted, insipid, unrefined, everything that her future mother-in-law despised most. Worst of all, hopelessly, provincially, irremediably German, without a hint of French cultivation.
"My son, to be married to a woman better suited as a burgher's wife!"
Wilhelmine's younger sister Charlotte joined in with equal enthusiasm, delivering with relish a description of just how bad she smelled. Whether Charlotte was just trying to garner favor with their impossible-to-please mother, or she was actually that spiteful, Wilhelmine didn't know. What she knew was that once upon a time, Charlotte had acted like she loved her, but ever since Wilhelmine got married, had turned into a copy of their mother, with hardly a nice word for her former favorite sister.
Maybe Wilhelmine's example had given Charlotte a reason to avoid risking her mother's wrath. But that was the story of Wilhelmine's entire childhood: she could easily have turned on Fritz in hopes of winning her father's love, just as Fritz could have joined forces with his mother against his older sister. They never even thought of it.
You don't do that, Charlotte, she thought bitterly. If we don't have each other, who do we have?
So she gave herself a headache trying to drown out the details while feigning enough attention to not get caught when she was addressed directly.
"Yes, Your Majesty, she does sound unpromising. No, I didn't encourage him. I've had very little contact with him, as you know."
It got him out of prison. What did you expect him to do? We both held out for years to please you, knowing pleasing you meant angering the King, and vice versa.
While her mother ranted, Wilhelmine coughed and sneezed into her handkerchief, hating winter, hating her father's miserly attitude toward firewood, hating the gossip whether it was true or false, wishing she had her lute. Wishing Friedrich were here with his flute. Embroidery gave her a reason to avoid meeting her mother's eyes, but that was all it did.
It certainly didn't distract her from her fears that her father would find a way to renege on his promise to let her see her brother. Nothing would surprise her less than if the King found some flimsy pretext for accusing Fritz of misbehaving, and punished him by forbidding him the trip to Berlin after all.
Then she heard a masculine voice, the voice nearest to her heart, at the door. She looked up, afraid she'd imagined it, and her dreams came true.
Fritz, her Fritz.
She knew she should wait for him to greet the Queen, and he knew he should greet the Queen first, and yet a second later, they were in each other's arms.
They held each other tight, but not as long as they used to. He was the first to let go. Wilhelmine had to remind herself that it was another of their father's punishments. It wasn't by choice, Friedrich had insisted a hundred times last year; he was still hers, forever and always. It was a condition of his freedom that he had to hold back with her, so that their father would be convinced he came first in Friedrich's thoughts.
Not that he was ever fully convinced. But outward obedience was better than flaunting disobedience.
She didn't want her brother back in Küstrin, so she contented herself with drinking in the sight of him with her eyes, while his eyes swallowed her whole. "Later," he whispered, "tonight," and with that, he had to go pay his respects to their mother.
It was a long evening, waiting. After she achieved her release from the interminable royal audience, Wilhelmine retired to her apartments, and sent for the three ladies of the court she'd missed the most, to keep her company. They told her everything of interest that had happened in Berlin since she left, she told them of life in Bayreuth, and she even played her lute for them. It was all very pleasant, but in the back of her mind, she couldn't help watching the clock and wondering how soon Friedrich would escape their parents.
She needed, desperately, to find out how dismayed he was by the impending marriage. She didn't know what answer to hope for. On the one hand, she dreaded the thought that he might fall in love with someone who could turn him away from her.
(Had God heard her prayers for lieutenants Keith and Katte to leave court and never corrupt her brother again, she sometimes wondered, and were their fates her punishment? Could God be so vengeful?)
On the other hand, she wasn't miserable in her marriage, and she couldn't wish misery on her beloved Fritz either. Everything she was hearing about his fiancée filled her with horror as much as a pleasing sense of superiority. But if Elisabeth Christine came first in his heart now, Wilhelmine didn't know how she would go on living.
"But you're a mother now!" Anna von Pannewitz exclaimed. Although she was one of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, she didn't follow her mistress's example. She'd never shown Wilhelmine anything but kindness, and Wilhelmine had always been fond of her. "You didn't bring your new daughter for us to see, did you?"
Wilhelmine shook her head. "She's only six months old, and I didn't want to expose her to the winter air all the way here. She's being taken care of by Sonsine." She missed her little girl more than she'd expected, but Sonsine had been her own governess when she was young, and there was no one she would sooner entrust a child to.
Then the talk turned easily to the weather, and their own health. Wilhelmine was glad to be in her own rooms, where, even if the fire was low, she could wrap herself up as much as she wanted, and warm herself with hot tea. Maybe she could escape without this cold getting any worse.
When Fritz came, the rest of the world fell away. Her friends laughingly waved them into her inner chamber, not taking personally their obvious desire to be alone. Friedrich's arm was locked in hers as they walked in and closed the door behind them. Then they stood and faced each other for a silent minute, taking in the changes and looking for what they recognized. He looked visibly older, and she knew she was now a woman who'd borne a child. But his eyes were the same, blue and bright and dancing, and she smiled at him with the old happiness.
Then, in the same second, they both began to talk. At first, it was everything she'd dreamed of. They talked to each other, around each other, over each other, and never paused for breath, only laughter. She knew then, with all her being, that any aloofness between them was only a pretense to appease Friedrich Wilhelm.
All her fears vanished, and her jumbled feelings started to settle into something approaching peace. Life, which had seemed unbearable only hours ago, suddenly held a lot worth living for. Her husband was kind, her daughter held her heart, her little brother still adored her, and if she didn't have her mother's love, at least she had an escape now.
But, slowly, it emerged that there were now some topics off limits. Not their mother; her behavior affected Fritz as much as it did Wilhelmine, and their parents had been a major topic of discussion all their lives. No, it was her husband and daughter he wanted to pretend didn't exist. Whenever she brought them up, Friedrich changed the subject, until she realized it wasn't an accident.
Wilhelmine reeled back and forth emotionally as she tried to adjust to this change. There were times when she also wanted to recapture that time when they were both children and, if they only had each other, at least they had each other. But try as she might to pretend, the world had changed greatly since then, and she resented the fact that there was such an immense part of her life she could no longer confide to her brother.
I did it for you. I only married to make the King happy so he would treat you better. It's not my fault he made you get married too.
Finally, struggling for calm, she turned to the one refuge that never failed her. She reached for her lute and smiled at him. "What would you like to play?"
"I'm happy to hear anything that pleases you." He sounded polite instead of enthusiastic, and made no move to join her.
"But where's your flute?"
"I didn't bring it."
"Then send a servant to your room," she said, irritated. He should have known she'd want to play. It wasn't as if he didn't have experience concealing the pieces of his flute in his uniform coat. She glanced at the wall separating them from the sitting room, suddenly realizing he might not know its occupants as well as she did. "I trust everyone in there. No one will mind." By which she meant, no one would carry stories back to the King.
Friedrich only replied, in a clipped voice, "I didn't bring it to Berlin."
It took Wilhelmine a minute to process what he was saying.
"It's in Ruppin," he said, now annoyed himself at having to elaborate. "I'm only allowed to stay for a few days before I have to return to my regiment, and you know how the King is."
Of course she did, that wasn't the point. It was nothing new that the King was determined to turn all of his sons into tin soldiers. But she'd thought her brother was too resilient for that. Was he breaking at long last?
"I don't know you any more." Wilhelmine could hear the fear in her own voice. Of course the "rehabilitation" in Küstrin had been brutal, but the smuggled out letters she'd gotten from Fritz said he couldn't wait to play with her. In them, he boasted of contraband and rule-bending in prison. Even a musician who'd secretly visited him. "I hadn't thought you could leave your flute behind in Ruppin any more than you could leave your right hand."
Tears were in his eyes. "Wilhelmine, sister, you of all people--you know what happened to Katte. He used to stand guard on my door while Quantz gave me lessons, and they ended up hiding in the closet while I was beaten."
The flimsy excuse only made Wilhelmine angrier. Couldn't he tell her the truth? "First, you know that's not what he died for, and second, it didn't stop you at the time. You kept on playing, you said you'd never stop."
"I haven't! I still play, all the time."
That much she believed. Then it was someone else he played with. "You know he's not going to beat me for playing music, so who are you afraid for?" She advanced on him two steps, until they were standing nose to nose. "Remember when I named my lute Principe, because it was the only prince who could ever be a rival to you? It's still true for me. Is your flute still the only princess you want to kiss?" she hissed. "Or does the Queen hate your princess because you're actually in love with her? Is she who you play with now?"
"What?" The sheer, unguarded shock on his tear-streaked face, without the slightest hesitation, did more to convince her than his words. "No! We don't have two words to say to each other. You still come first, you always come first. Do I have to go back to Küstrin to convince you? I was only allowed to start openly writing to you when I agreed to get married."
"I know." Wilhelmine's tears were stimulated by the sight of his, as always. "I know. I gave in too." She still hadn't told him why, that their father said he would let Friedrich out if she did. Then he played word games and pretended he'd only meant he'd let the Prince attend the wedding, then go right back to Küstrin. There was no need to add that to Friedrich's burdens. "But if you're leaving soon, how am I supposed to get through the rest of my time here if I haven't gotten to play with you even once?"
She watched his face crumple. "We'll find a way," he promised, his voice thick with feeling.
Then he pulled her into his arms and held onto her for dear life, as he hadn't done in so long she wasn't sure if he ever would again.
She clung back, thanking God, the Prime Mover, or whatever power governed human fates for giving her her brother back whole. Not because he was willing to risk the beating, but because he understood that soul-deep need of music in the face of a bewildering and hostile universe.
Now they had to find a flute on short notice, without anyone finding out.
She thought of asking her husband, who had brought his from Bayreuth, but she wasn't sure she wanted to expose him to the King's wrath, or give her brother any reason to doubt what she'd said about him not having a rival.
While they pondered silently, a knock interrupted them.
It was Pannewitz. "Your Highnesses," she said with a curtsey, "by no means did I mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help overhearing."
Friedrich looked as guilty as Wilhelmine felt. Had they been so loud?
"I only wanted to say, if it helps, I do play the flute myself from time to time, and I'm happy both to lend mine and to claim to be the one playing it, if the question comes up."
While Friedrich thanked her profusely, Wilhelmine's pent-up emotions dissolved into sobs of relief. "There, there." Pannewitz patted her on the shoulder. "You'll feel better once you've played. You always do."
The rest of the night passed in perfect harmony. By unspoken consent, sister and brother stuck to music, using it as their bridge and their balm to smooth over any little differences.
In anticipation of his visit, Wilhelmine had acquired some pieces for flute and lute by Ernst Baron. When she mentioned that she'd read his book on the lute, and found it interesting, she did so expecting Fritz to scoff when she had to admit that it hadn't yet been translated into French, but instead he looked oddly interested. So they talked for a while about music theory, and then they began to play.
One of the pieces was a challenging duet, and they spent a long time perfecting their performance. Losing herself in the total absorption of trying to play in perfect synchronization with the flute allowed Wilhelmine to stop thinking about anything else. She saw her exhilaration reflected on her brother's face. Only the late hour forced them to stop before they had it down to their satisfaction.
Wilhelmine was glad she had waited until after they were putting their instruments away, when she could finally ask with a steady voice,
"The princess Elisabeth Christine. Is she really as repulsive as I'm hearing?" Years of attending the Queen had made her proficient at concealing her expression. She pretended to direct her gaze downward at what her hands were doing, while watching out of the corner of her eye.
She saw her brother make a face. "Are you kidding? No one could be as bad as the Queen wants her to be. She's quiet and eager to please, and I think it'll work out. At least, I don't expect happiness, but I'll settle for not turning our marriage into a bloody battlefield." He didn't have to say which marriage he was alluding to. "Her Majesty only wants to hear about how despondent I am, of course."
Wilhelmine nodded, relieved. He seemed sincere, in both his reassurance and his indifference to his fiancée. It helped her to remember that even when she and Fritz fought, they fought over how much they loved each other.
"Could you-" Friedrich hesitated. "Could you maybe take her under your wing, as one woman to another? As I said, she's quite docile, and I don't see her ever intriguing against you, or causing you any problems aside from boredom. I don't know how much she can learn, but she couldn't have a better example than you, and a little polish might please Mother. I never wanted this marriage, but I'm getting a headache from-" He cut himself off abruptly.
Wilhelmine, who had just opened her mouth to refuse, closed it again. If Fritz was criticizing their mother, even a little, things must be bad.
She wasn't sure she wanted anything to do with Friedrich's wife--just those words made her want to claw her own skin off--but the distress in his eyes wasn't something she could turn away from. It couldn't hurt, she decided, to take the measure of this woman herself and maybe even have a chance to influence her. "I'll teach her whatever I can," she promised.
After all, she was her brother's ally and his protector in the midst of parental headaches, just as he was hers. If they didn't have each other, who did they have?
The next of their ordeals was their father's idea of entertainment: comic performances of the type calculated to appeal to his crude sense of humor. For hours. Attendance was mandatory, and no one dared look anything but utterly rapt, laughing convincingly at all the right parts.
The December air was chilly, the theater was too large to heat, and the King didn't believe in creature comforts, never had. Even as a small child, not yet ten years old, Friedrich had come crying to Wilhelmine one winter day after taking a beating for wearing gloves. As a daughter and therefore unimportant, Wilhelmine could get away with more than he could, but that didn't get her out of sitting here shivering with the rest of the family, pretending she was having fun.
It wasn't even proper comedy, French or Italian. It was German. Of course. Her father would hardly be amused by anything else.
Fritz, who hated German with a passion equal to his father's love for it, must be suffering even more than she was. At least from the performance--the cold was starting to sink into her bones. Everyone was sniffling or muffling a sneeze, but Wilhelmine's grew worse and worse, until finally her coughs wouldn't stop racking her.
Fritz tensed with every one. Wilhelmine tried to suppress them as much for his sake as because of her father's silent fury. Now the King was glaring at them both, once when she coughed and once when he flinched. It was too absurd to be true. Then she found that each cough made her a little warmer, because it was a form of movement that got her blood moving for at least a few seconds. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to please her father, keep her brother from worrying, and remind herself that she lived in another principality now and would be going back. Poor Fritz had no escape.
Suddenly, she felt something heavy fall around her shoulders. It was a cloak.
Involuntarily, she glanced around, even knowing she shouldn't take her eyes off the stage. It was a servant, one she didn't know. Probably because he wasn't worth noticing, and she was only a daughter, the King let it slide with half the usual glare.
Only much later that day did she discover who her savior was. A knock came at her door after she'd retired to bed.
"I'll see who it is, ma'am." Her lady-in-waiting Marwitz, who was lying in the bed next to her, to help warm it before she retired to her own bed, hopped out and into the cold air before Wilhelmine could even think about emerging.
She returned a minute later. "The Crown Prince sent a package of food."
A glow warmed Wilhelmine from the inside. Now a married woman, she had some avenues open to her for making up the deficiencies of her father's table, but that hadn't always been the case. It was wonderful of Fritz to share whatever he'd managed to get his hands on.
"It was the same servant who slipped you the cloak at the comedy earlier," Marwitz observed, as she unpacked the food.
Of course it was. No one had ever been as attuned to her as her brother. He must have signaled his body servant somehow. She didn't know how she could endure after Fritz left. The same way she always did, she supposed. At least she could tell herself he was out of prison now, even if a regiment was arguably a different kind of prison. Life was a prison; it was only a question of finding a tolerable one.
"Set out my ink and pen and dressing gown first thing tomorrow morning," she said. "I need to write a letter."
If Fritz was trapped in Prussia, and as heir to the throne was the focal point of the King's attention and wrath, Wilhelmine meant to leave him something to help him through the days. Even if it was only, I love you, my brother; my brother, I love you.
Fredersdorf was writing a letter to his mother before bed. He wanted her to know he was thinking of her during this Christmas season, and how he wished he could see her. Of course, he couldn't say just how much he wished for a world in which he could take Friedrich home, to the overcrowded peasant's cottage in which space and sometimes even food might be lacking, but kindness was not.
But there were certain things he could say, and not say, to get the message across.
Then the summons came. As quickly as he could, he put down his pen and thrust the letter inside his coat. Then he rose and went to the Prince's chambers, a little apprehensive. Every time Friedrich was released from an audience with the King, he was either frantically restless or sunk into a deep melancholy, and Fredersdorf didn't even have music here to coax him out of it. But he found Friedrich with his nose buried in a book, murmuring a passage aloud. All Fredersdorf could tell was that it was in French, which to him was gibberish, but that was enough. It meant the Prince had had at least a little time this evening to recover from his father's treatment. Fredersdorf breathed a little easier.
As he approached and stood at attention, Friedrich looked up sharply, then saw that it was only Fredersdorf. He still jumped whenever he was reading and someone came in. It broke Fredersdorf's heart every time.
"You weren't supposed to bring yourself to the King's attention." Friedrich immediately went on the offense. "Now he's noticed you, and we were supposed to avoid that at all costs. You promised me."
After serving him for the better part of a year, Fredersdorf knew him well enough to guess that he wasn't angry so much as frightened, because they both had so much to lose.
So he responded to the fear rather than the anger. "It's a difficult thing," he said sympathetically, "being caught between a sister and a father. I thought it would be easier for me." What he didn't say was that Friedrich's distress had been so obvious that Fredersdorf was convinced he was going to do or say something himself if the coughing went on any longer, and that he'd decided to act before the Prince could.
"He doesn't hate you, it's true," Friedrich conceded. "It was still a risk."
Fredersdorf repressed a wince. What kind of hell did a man have to grow up in to be able to utter that first sentence so matter-of-factly? And what was Fredersdorf supposed to say? He couldn't insist it wasn't true, after all.
Then all he could respond to was the second half.
"If I'd gotten a dressing down, I would have begged his pardon with all my might for misunderstanding his wishes. Then I would have found a chance to explain that it seemed like he was having a hard time enjoying the play with all her coughing."
"You're a quick thinker, Fredersdorf." The Prince smiled, mollified, but there was sadness on his face. "That's why I hired you. And I mean it, thank you. If my sister sickened and died, I really would want to join her."
"And if Your Highness died, I'd be devastated, and I promised you I wouldn't let us be separated, so you can see I had no choice today."
The sadness didn't leave Friedrich's eyes, but his smile broadened, and he looked comforted. That was all Fredersdorf could do.
Then he looked down at his book, and up at Fredersdorf, in one of his rapid-fire changes of topic. "If I could get you some books in German, would you be interested? There's one on the theory of composition that might be to your liking."
Fredersdorf felt his eyebrows fly up and his heart beat faster. Would he be interested! "If it's not too much of a risk, Your Highness," he said cautiously, "I'd be very grateful for your generosity." It wouldn't be fair to let the Prince see Fredersdorf's excitement at the prospect, not if that might encourage him to do something the King would make him regret later, but Fredersdorf did want to say yes, badly.
"Eh, sometimes you have to take risks." Friedrich, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, or at least inconsistency, waved his hand dismissively. "At least reading a book, you can't be overheard in the next room. I'll see what I can do."
"It's really not because you're a prince that I take such pleasure in working for you."
These little gestures of affection were like trying to stack pebbles into a dam against the flood of pain and grief that came from his father, but maybe because the pebbles were so small and few between, Friedrich clung to them all the harder.
"Do sit down, then." The look in his eyes was half command, half plea. "We have so little time, with my father keeping me busy from sunup to sundown."
"We'll be home soon," Fredersdorf murmured reassuringly, then sat down to hear all about the conversation the Prince and Princess had had today about the opera buffa trend emerging in Italy. At first, the Prince's urge to relay conversations like this, so great he seemed to forget he was talking to a commoner, had seemed odd, but Fredersdorf had gotten used to it with startling rapidity.
In some ways, Fredersdorf thought, his role as Friedrich's most trusted servant positioned him perfectly to reap some of the benefits of wealth, without the drawbacks that Friedrich suffered from. If only they didn't have to worry about the King and his hatred of anyone Friedrich let himself get too close to, Fredersdorf could be perfectly happy.
Mid-sentence, Friedrich suddenly remembered something. "Fredersdorf. My divine mother sent a food delivery earlier. I ate about half of it before it occurred to me that she might not have done the same for my sister."
Fredersdorf, who had helped smuggle letters in and out of Küstrin, knew what he was being asked. He bowed. "It would be an honor to be entrusted with the job, sir."
"You have the intelligence and discretion, not to mention a good deal more experience with secret missions since you met me." Friedrich winked, to Fredersdorf's amusement.
"My pleasure to be of assistance. Speaking of which, if I may ask, did I or did I not see Your Highness passing notes with the Princess during the sermon this morning?" Just as he said this, Fredersdorf caught his breath, wondering if he'd crossed a line. Working for someone his own age, who wanted to be friends but also had an uncertain temper and the ability to send Fredersdorf packing, was enjoyable but in some ways more challenging than a purely business relationship.
But Friedrich responded with a grin like a bolt of lightning. "You mean the sermon on honoring your parents and obeying your father?" He plunged his hand into his pocket, delighted. "Look at what she wrote. If he provokes me enough, I may find the courage to say it to his face one day."
Colossians 3:21, it read.
Fredersdorf's mind, steeped in Bible study since his earliest memories, supplied the relevant verse. Fathers, do not embitter your children, lest they become discouraged.
"I had no choice either," Friedrich explained with a mischievous look. "It's an old family tradition. My father makes us listen to tedious sermons, largely about how God and fathers are the same, while my sister and I prepare better entertainment beforehand. We try to guess how exactly it's going to go, and then deploy the appropriate notes as the opportunities arise. It's great fun."
Fredersdorf gave the Prince the smile of amusement he was looking for, but in the back of his mind, he was thinking, Proverbs, 15:17.
He could put it in the letter he was writing, and his mother would understand. Better a small dish of vegetables with love than a fattened calf with hatred.
With that in mind, he lifted the package of food Friedrich showed him, and tucked it inside his overcoat to take to the Princess.
"Shall I return to pack your belongings for the trip to Ruppin tomorrow, sir?" They couldn't get home fast enough for Fredersdorf's tastes.
"Yes, and no. Yes, pack them, but leave me one change of clothes. The warm ones. I'm sending you on ahead as a decoy, and I'll follow the next day. My father thinks I'm leaving Berlin tomorrow, but there's one more person I need to see."
When Friedrich's late-night arrival was announced at Ulrich von Suhm's house, the former Saxon envoy came flustered into the sitting room, clad in an old dressing gown. "Your Royal Highness! What a pleasant surprise-"
"Don't you dare 'Your Royal Highness' me," Friedrich burst out. He launched himself across the room at Suhm, throwing his arms around the older man and holding tight.
Suhm closed his arms around Friedrich's body, in just the way Friedrich remembered. He made the slightest of rocking motions, back and forth, back and forth. "I am so sorry," he breathed into Friedrich's ear, too softly to be overheard by the servants standing by. "So unbearably sorry."
In terms of homecoming, only Wilhelmine's embraces had had more power to heal, and they had always been far too brief. His mother had been wonderfully committed to taking her favorite child's side, but not for one second had she been able to step outside her own rage long enough to consider how anything affected Friedrich. All her feelings had been directed toward the humiliation of his marriage.
In Suhm's gentle voice, Friedrich heard everything he'd suffered since they last met: the fear, uncertainty, grief, guilt, and despair, and at last, the determination to keep fighting for life at all costs.
When he finally pulled back, Friedrich wiped his eyes, once, and then again more roughly, trying to regain control. He'd never held back from crying in front of Suhm, but today he was afraid that if he started, he wouldn't be able to stop. The last time they'd seen each other was at the Zeithain camp, when Katte was still alive.
Suhm offered him a handkerchief after he failed to turn one up himself. Then he kissed Friedrich once on each eyelid, his tried-and-true method for comforting him since very long ago.
Friedrich wished things could be this free and easy with Fredersdorf, but Suhm was a nobleman, a good deal older than Friedrich, and they'd known each other forever. Fredersdorf would never hold him and love him like this, and Friedrich knew he needed to accept that. Worse, he would never know why, whether Fredersdorf was holding back because of the class differences, paralyzed by fear of the King, or simply uninterested.
It didn't matter, he told himself, fiercely, willing himself to believe it. Kisses and caresses were easy, and Fredersdorf irreplaceable.
"How long are you visiting?" Suhm asked, when he'd recovered enough to put the handkerchief away.
"Only tonight, and it's a secret. I'll need to borrow your carriage before dawn to get me out of the city, since I'm not supposed to be here. I've sent my own ahead with orders to wait at an inn while a broken axle is repaired."
"What's mine is yours, as always, but I wasn't prepared for a royal visit, so please forgive any inadequacies tonight."
"This isn't a 'royal visit'," Friedrich sniffed, a little hurt. "You're retired, and my father hates you. We're still friends, aren't we?" After two and a half years, he'd come here so afraid something had changed. He'd lost friends before, who'd sworn themselves to be his forever. Even the affectionate response to his letter Suhm had sent could have been nothing more than courtesy from an experienced diplomat to a future monarch.
But Suhm's face, together with his voice and arms, were enough to convince Friedrich that not all had been lost in the wreckage of 1730. "Until my dying breath, I swear it. Now come sit by the fire, my dear prince. It's cold."
"Not as cold as my father keeps it," but Friedrich went gratefully to his chair. The warmest part of the room was the way Suhm didn't take his eyes from him, even while he sent his servants running for this and that. "He's forcing me to get married, you know."
"I'd heard," Suhm said sympathetically. "Is it the lady herself who doesn't please you, or the idea of marrying a stranger...?"
For a moment, Friedrich was angry at Suhm. It should have been obvious. But then he decided to blame his father, for keeping them apart so long that things like this needed to be explained.
"The lady, the fact that my father forced my hand and is choosing my bride, and the idea of marriage at all, to any woman. Much less this one. She's tongue-tied, pious, uneducated, and uninteresting, and I'm going to have to take her to bed."
"You'll find a way," Suhm encouraged.
"I don't want to find a way! My father's forcing me to find a way." Seeing his pain reflected in Suhm's eyes, Friedrich deflated. "I'm not trying to quarrel with you, friend of my heart. I just can't stand it."
Reaching over, he took both Friedrich's hands in his and pressed them tight. "You have nothing to explain to me, not now and not ever."
"I know. I just...I don't want to upset my mother, so I have to pretend it's worse than it is, and I don't want to worry my sister, so I pretend it's better than it is." He made a sound that was half laugh, half choked sob. "You used to tell me that I needed to get better at dissimulation, to keep my father happy. Well, I'm learning."
Suhm actually closed his eyes. Just as Friedrich was starting to regret lashing out at him, he opened them and asked, "Is there anyone you can confide in? Regularly, I mean?"
Slowly, Friedrich nodded. He didn't want to admit it was a servant, but he wanted to say something. "He reminds me of you, a little. He keeps his calm, no matter what happens."
"I can see why you'd value that." Suhm's tone was slightly amused, but thankfully, he didn't press for details.
"I'd rather my sister, but our father took care of that. Talk to me, please? He's keeping me away from you too, you know. From everyone I know and love in Berlin."
Still holding onto his hands, Suhm knew, without being told, exactly what Friedrich wanted. He inquired about his studies, and then he offered suggestion after suggestion. All the things that Friedrich wouldn't have known existed, or wouldn't have thought to link together, Suhm could tell him. He understood, as well, what Friedrich's strengths and weaknesses were, what caught his interest and what he found tedious. He was perfect.
When the refreshments arrived, it was hard to break away from the conversation, even as Friedrich's stomach rumbled instantly on seeing food. It was served informally, on small tables at the fireside, and the fish was so delicious it took him a minute to realize Suhm wasn't eating.
"Aren't you going to join me? This can't all be mine. It's enough for an army!"
Suhm smiled. "I've eaten tonight, and I thought you'd be hungry. Your father hasn't suddenly started letting anyone leave his table with a full stomach, has he?" he said, with delicate irony.
Friedrich snorted. "Not if he can help it."
"Besides, it's too spicy for me. I have to coddle my digestion. No, it's for you."
"It's good," Friedrich said enthusiastically around a mouthful. He couldn't believe Suhm remembered his tastes, after all this time. "You have to talk to me, then. Let me hear your voice while I eat." He could stuff himself when he was back in Ruppin, but they only had the one night together.
Obligingly, Suhm started offering a commentary on a life of Charles XII he'd recently read, something he evidently could produce off the top of his head, making it not only informative but sprinkled with light humor. All the while, he kept on gazing at Friedrich as though the sight of him was feeding a different kind of hunger, one that had been with him a very long time.
The tenderness in his expression made Friedrich want to weep. Had Suhm really instructed his cook to keep unused recipes for years, in the faith that he would see Friedrich again someday?
He put down his fork earlier than he would have at home, consumed by stronger hungers of his own. "May I see your library?"
"Nothing would bring me greater joy." Suhm kept one arm around his shoulders as they walked along the shelf-lined walls, stopping from time to time to pull a book down and share its treasures. He always hit a sweet spot that no one else did, somewhere between lover and mentor. Even as it slaked Friedrich's loneliness, it left him longing.
"I wish I could stay," he said as they settled down by the fire again, this time with a translation of Horace. "I wish you could come to Ruppin. Wherever it's darkest, you let the light through."
"There is a sun," Suhm promised. "And you will see it one day. I told you once, when Lieutenant Keith was first sent away, that you would love again, and you did. I make you the same promise now. You'll never stop grieving, but you won't always be alone."
Friedrich hesitated.
Wilhelmine had been so hostile to his previous loves, and so convinced that he was going to forget her now that they were grown up and moved away, that he could never have told her about Fredersdorf. But Suhm was holding his hand and smiling encouragingly at him, so Friedrich took a deep breath.
"He's just a commoner," he said right away, feeling bad about the "just" even as he felt the need to defend his choice, when Wilhelmine had scoffed at even a von Katte for not knowing his place. "But my new valet--he's loyal." That felt like damning with faint praise, but there was only so much one could say about a valet. Suhm nodded, and Friedrich continued, "He's not educated, but he plays the flute. Very well, in fact. He's passionate about it. He played for me at Küstrin, and then as soon as I was freed, I hired him. He should have been a nobleman; he's intelligent enough. You can tell right away when talking to him, even though he never went to university."
It was the first time he'd talked to anyone about Fredersdorf being special. He had to force the words out, but at the same time, it was a tremendous relief, especially when Suhm did nothing but nod approvingly. "Knowing you as well as I do, I'm certain that anyone could get an education just by spending time with you."
"He doesn't speak French," Friedrich confessed. "And I don't always know the German terms when it comes to literature and art." It was easier when Fredersdorf didn't either; then he simply learned them in French. But when he did, trying to tell if they were talking about the same thing got confusing fast.
"That is a conundrum," Suhm agreed. "I'll tell you what. You give me a list of French words, and I'll gloss them for you in German. And no, don't thank me. Every time I have to witness or hear about any aspect of your life, there's never anything I can do to help. This is little enough."
"Still, it means a lot." Friedrich lifted his hand to his mouth and kissed it.
"I'm just relieved you have someone you can talk to. Is he the one who reminds you of me?"
Friedrich looked at him cautiously. "You're not offended?"
"How could I be? I'm honored to be someone whom someone you love would remind you of."
In the morning, Suhm sent Friedrich off to Ruppin with a carriage packed the way one would expect from him, with all the food and books Friedrich would accept. The last thing he said, in the long hug before Friedrich climbed inside the coach, was,
"Remember, love is a gift from God, wherever you find it."
Friedrich glanced at the mirror. "Fredersdorf, I don't have all morning. You need to be able to shave me in about half the time." It was good to be away from his father again, but if he was lax at all in his regimental duties, back to Küstrin he would go.
As always, Fredersdorf remained unflappable. "I'm sure His Highness's other servants have more experience than I do at shaving a man while he talks, without cutting his throat, but I'll have the experience soon, never fear."
That stopped Friedrich short. Then a slow smile spread across his face. "No, they probably don't," he admitted. "I'll be quiet."
The words bottled up inside him while he let Fredersdorf do his job, allowing Friedrich the chance to appreciate just how much he needed his man for. He had plenty of learned friends at Ruppin he could talk to about literature and the like--Keyserlingk, he was half-convinced, knew everything under the sun--but he didn't have to censor his words at all with Fredersdorf. It was easy to forget how very much he needed that, and the silence helped him remember.
The silence also allowed him to really pay attention to the feel of Fredersdorf's hands at work. Shaving could be very intimate, done right. Friedrich closed his eyes and savored the caress of the blade, guided steadily over his skin. He was almost disappointed when it was over. But he would sound silly if he said so, after making such a fuss over efficiency.
"Well, I must attend to my regiment now. I've drafted some replies to recruiters; if you want to flesh those out into letters ready for my signature, once you're done with the household accounts, it would be a great help." He gestured toward his desk. "I know it's outside your usual remit, but it'll make it easier for me to find the time to talk about literature and opera with you."
"Very good, sir. One question: I unpacked Your Highness's trunks last night, but I couldn't find the books you said you wanted me to read."
"Ah, yes. I had to hide them. I have a few tricks up my sleeve." He winked and rolled his eyes almost simultaneously at Fredersdorf, proud of the skill and annoyed at the necessity.
After fetching them up from under the false bottom in one of the trunks, Friedrich took great pleasure in gifting them to his valet. Music, architecture, literature.
"Basso Continuo in Composition," Fredersdorf murmured, as his eyes lingered on the covers. "Thank you, sir. Thank you."
The naked longing in Fredersdorf's face touched him deeply. Friedrich, of all people, knew that learning and intelligence weren't the same thing. Probably alone of the upper classes in Europe, Friedrich had been beaten by his father out of studying Latin, and there were those who would consider him hopelessly benighted just for that. So as much as he might despise German as a language, he couldn't despise its speakers just for not having had the chance to learn anything better.
"All yours," he said, knowing that Fredersdorf could not have afforded even this small collection of high-quality volumes. Suhm had been generous. "Courtesy of a good friend of mine. He's perhaps the kindest man I've ever known. On top of that, he's equally proficient in French and German, and he's very learned."
Fredersdorf inclined his head, formal again. "Please pass my heartfelt thanks on to him, then, and tell me if there's ever anything I can do to repay his kindness. He's the one Your Highness stayed with that last night in Berlin?"
"I've missed him a great deal," Friedrich said by way of answer. "And with the upcoming marriage, and hardly getting to see my sister, and...I needed someone who would--he held me." Why he was telling Fredersdorf this, he didn't know, except that he could tell him anything at all. And perhaps the shaving had affected his mood. "We held hands while we talked, practically until dawn, and he could touch my hair or I could caress his cheek, and no one was reporting to my father. It was lovely."
Just then, for perhaps the first time since Friedrich had met him, Fredersdorf's composure faltered. After a second's hesitation, during which their eyes locked, Fredersdorf ventured, "Your Highness...likes that sort of thing?"
For a moment, Friedrich didn't understand the question. Fredersdorf knew he was drawn to men, everyone knew that. His father knew that: that was why he had sent Keith away, and one reason, Friedrich was convinced, nothing less than death for Katte would satisfy him.
"Did you corrupt Katte, or did he corrupt you? Answer me!"
"It was me, Sire! I corrupted him. It wasn't his fault."
Friedrich shook himself out of the waking nightmare. If Fredersdorf was posing a question to which he knew the answer, in that tentative tone so unlike him, there could be only one thing he was really asking. "Yes," he answered, hardly daring to hope. He didn't break eye contact. "Yes, I...like that sort of thing."
Like magic, like a promise being fulfilled, Fredersdorf's hand drifted up toward Friedrich's face. His fingertips rested on the skin he'd just shaved smooth, and then they began to trace the lines of his cheek. Half hypnotized, Friedrich tilted his head to offer it all to Fredersdorf.
"You'd risk it?" He knew that if they started, they wouldn't stop here, and he'd vowed not to ask this of anyone ever again, not until his father was dead. "He's never killed anyone just for this--only for joining me in what he called desertion--but I couldn't bear to have you sent away in disgrace, the way Keith was."
In answer, Fredersdorf glanced to the side, at the small pile of books he'd set down. "Someone told me some risks have to be taken."
Throat tight, Friedrich nodded. He didn't have it in him to refuse, not when loneliness stalked him from morning till night, and worst of all in his dreams.
"You give me books..." Fredersdorf leaned in, placing a kiss on Friedrich's jaw. "And I give you love. I give you music-"
Friedrich stepped closer, wrapping his arms around Fredersdorf and telling himself that if this was his new life, he would make the most of it. "And I give you trust."