“Like your saint,” I put in.
“The very same. Now, this prince was eager for riches and honors, so he pledged his beautiful daughter to a great king who was also a pagan. But the Princess Otthild had become a Christian and she refused to marry her father’s chosen bridegroom. Her father beat her for her willfulness and threatened other tortures and so she ran away, climbing up the mountain. Her father and her bridegroom brought search parties up the peak, but no one could find her, for the maiden princess had prayed and a mist descended from heaven, cloaking her from view. She remained there, safe in her aerie where no one could find her. But someone did,” she added, pausing for dramatic effect.
“Who?” I demanded.
“The great tempter himself—Lucifer! He came to the princess and offered her riches to repudiate God and take a pagan husband.”
“Why should the devil care?” I asked.
The baroness clucked her tongue. “Do not ask questions! You look for logic with a scientist’s mind and this is a story about magic.”
I fell silent and she went on.
“The devil tempted her for three days, and each day the princess refused, growing colder and fainter from hunger. But she would not give in, and at last the devil, too cold himself to stay upon the mountain, ran away. Now the princess was too weak to move. The cold and the hunger had stolen her strength and she lay near death, but she had held fast to her principles. So God called upon the creatures of the forest to help her. ‘Not I,’ said the mountain goat,” the baroness said in a deep basso profundo voice. “‘Nor I,’ said the fox,” she continued, raising her voice to the sharp edge of a fox’s bark. “‘Nor I,’ said the squirrel. And so it continued with all the creatures of the forest. Except the otter. He climbed from his river, sleek and quick, and he stole a loaf of bread to carry up the mountain to the dying princess. And when she had eaten, he curled himself around her, giving her warmth until her strength was restored. She came down the mountain with the otter at her side, and lived long enough to tell her story to the priest who found her. She died in the priest’s arms, but her story became legend, and she was made a saint. And that is how the devil’s staircase, the Teufelstreppe, earned its name.”
“An unfortunate young woman,” I remarked.
“Unfortunate! She was called to sainthood,” the baroness corrected. “She was one of the great virgin martyrs and the only one from the Alpenwald.”
She carried on with her grooming tasks, and in between she schooled me on matters of etiquette and deportment. “You must carry your head at all times as if you were wearing a crown,” she instructed. “Of course, tonight you will be.”
“I have to wear a crown?” The assorted false pieces of hair and jeweled hairpins were constricting enough. I was not entirely certain my head would bear more weight.
“Not a crown precisely,” she assured me. “But a very fine tiara. It is a gala performance, you will recall. The princess must represent her country as a monarch.”
She hefted the ring of keys from her belt and went to a portable cabinet in the corner. It was a beautiful affair of inlaid wood depicting mountain scenes with forests and lakes and dancing bears and lissome maidens. “It is a lovely piece,” I told her.
She lifted out a casket and locked the cabinet carefully up again. “The princess never travels without it. It is an example of our artisans’ works.” It might have been another example of Alpenwalder craftsmanship, but it was much more charming than the dreadful goat clock. The casket was also made of wood, but as the baroness opened it, she showed me the steel panels inside, cushioned with velvet. “A strongbox, but made to be pretty. All things that may be made beautiful ought to be,” she explained. She drew out a velvet case and with a flourish flung back the lid. I gasped aloud. The jewels inside were shimmering, catching at the light and tossing it back again, a thousand times over in an endless parade of brilliance. It was a parure, a matched set of enormous sapphires and amethysts shading from the wine-dark hues of midnight seas to the pale blues and purples of an Alpine evening. Larger stones had been set in the frame of the tiara whilst high loops of jewels circled around smaller gems hung en tremblant to swing gently as the wearer moved. Diamonds twinkled like stars throughout, leading the eye from the tiara to the girandole earrings and on to the high, collared necklace. A pair of bracelets and a wide stomacher completed the suite.
I stared at them, mesmerized, hardly daring to breathe upon their magnificence.
The baroness’s stern expression softened. “They are exquisite, are they not? A collection that once belonged to Marie Louise, the second empress of Napoléon. One of her nieces married into the Alpenwalder royal family and brought the parure with her. Our princess prefers it to the state jewels because it is lighter.”
She signaled to Yelena, who fastened the earrings to my ears the old-fashioned way, by means of narrow silk ribbons tied around the ear to hold the weight of sapphires the size of cherries. They swung heavily against my neck, almost touching the necklace she clasped about my throat. The last piece to go on was the tiara, nestled into the arrangement of plaits. I poked it idly with a finger, watching in concern as it wobbled a little.
“How on earth am I to keep it steady?” I asked.
The baroness reached for her chatelaine, extracting a threaded needle. She advanced upon me, and without a word, she stitched the tiara into my hair, whipping the needle around the base of the coronet and through one of the false plaits. When she was finished, she gave the tiara a hearty, painful tug. “There,” she pronounced in satisfaction. “It will sit as it should.”
I could scarcely turn my head for the combined weight of the wigs and jewels. “You will soon accustom yourself to it,” she assured me. “The more you wear it, the less you will notice it.”
“Luckily it is only for tonight,” I replied. The baroness said nothing but turned to Yelena, signaling to her to pack away the various cosmetics as the baroness herself locked away the jewel cases.
“It is only for tonight,” I pressed.
The baroness gave me a thin smile. “We have a saying in the Alpenwald, Fraulein. Plans are jokes written by men for God’s amusement.”
“That is hardly reassuring,” I told her.
“It sounds better in German.”
CHAPTER
11
The baroness carried on with her preparations by going to the bed, smoothing over the folds of the gown that Yelena had laid out, straightening the various ribbons and laces. She handled the princess’s things respectfully, reverently almost.
My eyes fell to a large gilded box on the dressing table, the wares of one of our most exclusive chocolatiers, I realized. The baroness’s attention never left the clothing she was inspecting, but nothing escaped her.