Dragonfly in Amber - Diana Gabaldon [134]
“How extraordinary,” she said.
“Be that as it may, Mother—can you, with your gift, discern what this particular pattern is? It would be difficult; I have reason to suppose that it is a cipher, and that the language of the message is English, though the text of the songs is in German.”
Mother Hildegarde uttered a small grunt of surprise.
“English? You are sure?”
Jamie shook his head. “Not sure, no, but I think so. For one reason, there is the country of origin; the songs were sent from England.”
“Well, Monsieur,” she said, arching one eyebrow. “Your wife speaks English, does she not? And I imagine that you would be willing to sacrifice her company to assist me in performing this endeavor for you?”
Jamie eyed her, the half-smile on his face the mirror image of hers. He glanced down at his feet, where Bouton’s whiskers quivered with the ghost of a growl.
“I’ll make ye a bargain, Mother,” he said. “If your wee dog doesna bite me in the arse on the way out, you can have my wife.”
* * *
And so, that evening, instead of returning home to Jared’s house in the Rue Tremoulins, I took supper with the sisters of the Couvent des Anges at their long refectory table, and then retired for the evening’s work to Mother Hildegarde’s private rooms.
There were three rooms in the Superior’s suite. The outer one was furnished as a sitting room, with a fair degree of richness. This, after all, was where she must often receive official visitors. The second room was something of a shock, simply because I wasn’t expecting it. At first, I had the impression that there was nothing in the small room but a large harpsichord, made of gleaming, polished walnut, and decorated with small, hand-painted flowers sprouting from a twisting vine that ran along the sounding board above glowing ebony keys.
On second look, I saw a few other bits of furniture in the room, including a set of bookshelves that ran the length of one wall, stuffed with works on musicology and hand-stitched manuscripts much like the one Mother Hildegarde now laid on the harpsichord’s rack.
She motioned me to a chair placed before a small secretary against one wall.
“You will find blank paper and ink there, milady. Now, let us see what this little piece of music may tell us.”
The music was written on heavy parchment, the lines of the staves cleanly ruled across the page. The notes themselves, the clef signs, rests, and accidentals, were all drawn with considerable care; this was plainly a final clean copy, not a draft or a hastily scribbled tune. Across the top of the page was the title “Lied des Landes.” A Song of the Country.
“The title, you see, suggests something simple, like a volkslied,” Mother Hildegarde said, pointing one long, bony forefinger at the page. “And yet the form of the composition is something quite different. Can you read music at sight?” The big right hand, large-knuckled and short-nailed, descended on the keys with an impossibly delicate touch.
Leaning over Mother Hildegarde’s black-clad shoulder, I sang the first three lines of the piece, making the best I could of the German pronunciation. Then she stopped playing, and twisted to look up at me.
“That is the basic melody. It then repeats itself in variations—but such variations! You know, I have seen some things reminiscent of this. By a little old German named Bach; he sends me things now and again—” She waved carelessly at the shelf of manuscripts. “He calls them ‘Inventions,’ and they’re really quite clever; playing off the variations in two or three melodic lines simultaneously. This”—she pursed her lips at the ‘Lied’ before us—“is like a clumsy imitation of one of his things. In fact, I would swear that.…” Muttering to herself, she pushed back the walnut bench and went to the shelf, running a finger rapidly down the rows of