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  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 h
appen 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 hi
s 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.