Chapter Text
Edmund was eight the first time the wunderkind came back to England. He had been in London five years ago, but Edmund was still in nappies then and didn’t remember. Now, while the entire palace was a-buzz with excitement over the prodigy’s imminent return, Edmund consulted Baldrick for some information.
“Well, you must remember something, Balders,” he whined, when the older boy only scrunched up his face in confusion. “The wunderkind! You know, with the violin.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. B, I really am,” said Edmund’s dogsbody, as he went on scrubbing Prince George’s chamber pot. Baldrick was a smelly lad of indeterminate age, perhaps just ten and perhaps nearly a grown man—his small stature made it difficult to tell—and no one could remember exactly where he had come from, how long he’d been here, or when and by whom he’d been assigned to Edmund and the prince. For Edmund’s part, anyway, he did not remember life without Baldrick, just like he didn’t remember it without Prince George; they, and this palace, were—much as he often hated them all—the only constants he had.
And besides, he was extremely grateful to have Baldrick around when it came to tasks like...well, like scrubbing Prince George’s chamber pot, which the dogsbody did with patience and, it almost seemed, enthusiasm.
“You know I’d tell you, sir,” he continued now, “if I remembered who you mean.”
“Oh, my God,” groaned Edmund. “He must’ve been about my age then...seven or eight. And he came with his father, and mother, and sister...they say he wrote a symphony! Wolfgang something, he’s called, I think.”
“Oh, you mean Wolfie?!” Baldrick exclaimed, rising from his work with a gummy grin, and splattering Edmund with brown soapy water as he let the contents of the chamber pot go flying. Edmund cursed and smacked the older boy and tried to keep from vomiting, hardly listening while Baldrick went on. “Well, Mr. B, why didn’t you just say so? Me and Wolfie got on like jam and scones. We was best chums! You really mean to say Wolfie’s coming back?!”
“Hang on, hang on. You don’t really expect me to believe that you, Baldrick, and the wunderkind became friends?”
“We certainly did, sir,” nodded the dogsbody, who by now had sat Edmund down on the prince’s floor and was clumsily wiping his black waistcoat with a filthy handkerchief. “Wolfie and his family stayed in London a whole year. He didn’t speak much English, but we discovered our own sort of common language, the two of us.”
“Oh, really,” sighed Edmund, feeling completely unconvinced and disinterested at this point. “And what was that.”
“Well...I’m afraid it’s not very polite, sir.”
“Of you, Balders, I would expect nothing less.”
Baldrick grinned and snorted back a giggle, as he raised his eyebrows toward the repulsive thing he’d been cleaning mere moments ago. “Toilet humor, Mr. B.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Now I know you’re deluded. A wunderkind wouldn’t laugh at any of the same things you do, Baldrick, least of all potty jokes!”
“It’s true, Mr. B!”
“Well, never mind it.” Edmund waved his hand in surrender, then finally pushed the dogsbody and accompanying handkerchief off him. “What’s he like?”
“Wolfie? Oh, he’s good fun, sir. And sure good at playing that tiny guitar he had.”
“Violin.”
“No, sir, not violent at all,” said Baldrick, and Edmund groaned under his breath. “A very nice little chap. Even littler than me. King George used to pick him up himself and set him on the settee to play his music for the whole court. And you and the prince, you were so adorable still in your little lacy dresses, crawling all over the floor. Once, Mr. B, you made a great big brown in your nappy during Wolfie’s show, and he and I used to say that—”
“Yes, alright, alright, Baldrick!” Edmund screamed, covering his ears and blushing, absolutely mortified at the thought of the wunderkind knowing him only as that baby who crapped while I was playing my symphony. Oh, God! It was almost unbearable. “I’ve heard quite enough. Finish cleaning the prince’s toilet, and go ahead and do all the rest on this floor while you’re at it, won’t you? Since you seem to love them so much.”
“Yes, Mr. B. Oh, I’m so excited to see Wolfie, sir!”
“Yes, yes, alright.”
~~~
If he was being honest, Edmund was equal parts excited, equal parts irate about the impending arrival of the wunderkind. On the one hand, the thought of having another intelligent person around for a change gave him a sort of thrill. Oh, just imagine actually having someone to talk to, really talk to! He was so accustomed to the abysmally thick company of Baldrick and the prince that the notion of meeting another person like him was almost unfathomable. Perhaps with the wunderkind at court for a few days, Edmund could, at last, make his first real friend.
But on the other hand, with such a brilliant young chap around, Edmund might cease to be special. With his quick tongue and quick brain, the little butler to the prince was viewed by everyone in the palace as something of an oddity—almost like a circus performer, a bizarre and remarkable creature heard of but rarely seen in real life. The prince’s butler is the only clever person in the whole royal family, people often joked. “That little fellow who serves my son and wears all black all the time,” the king said once, “he’s astonishing, isn’t he? Sometimes I wish he were the heir to the throne!”
And Edmund, listening in round the corner with Prince George’s tea tray, smirked wickedly. He was only six then, but since that fateful day had not stopped dreaming of wild success, wild money, wild power—somehow, someday, being king.
But now, now, ever since word first arrived that the wunderkind was coming back, all chatter of Edmund’s brilliance hushed as quickly as the ducks when the king went out shooting. No, now it was all about this little German fellow, who had composed his first piece of music when he was still wearing infant gowns and traveled across Europe playing to the mighty and the powerful. He had seen it all, done it all, experienced the world in ways that Edmund only could by sneaking into the royal library after everyone was asleep and reading by candlelight. He didn’t know life outside the palace walls, much as he longed to, and while he hoped he might have the chance to ask the wunderkind about it, he felt, sometimes, already, such a resentful jealousy toward him, competition with him.
What he’d feel at the moment the wunderkind actually stepped through the door, only time would tell.
~~~
The night before that greatly anticipated event, once everyone had finally settled down from all their eagerness and gone to sleep, Edmund kicked his feet off the bed and wriggled into his dressing gown. Across the room, Baldrick was snoring loudly; much to Edmund’s chagrin, they had stayed together his entire life, in this damp and creaky hovel-like excuse for a bedchamber off the kitchen. This meant that he spent almost every waking second in bed plugging his nose and holding his breath, as the only alternative was to inhale Baldrick’s steady aroma of dung and rotten turnips.
Having safely exited, Edmund took his first deep breath in hours and ran on stealthy tiptoes to the library. He’d stolen a key from Prince George ages ago, which went completely unnoticed because the prince had never, in his life, stepped within a kilometer of a single book. Edmund closed the door quietly behind him, then immediately climbed up the ladder where he knew he’d find the volumes on musical composition. He fully intended, in one night, to learn everything there was to know about symphonies, sonatas, and minuets, so that come tomorrow, he could hold his own in conversation with the wunderkind.
And he could have done it, too—that is, if he hadn’t been interrupted half an hour into his intensive study by a woefully familiar voice. Blackadder! It was screaming, sounding rather like a dying pig. Bladders! Come quickly, oh, please, oh, please, Bladders!
Edmund expelled a great groan, slammed his book shut, and banged his head against its cover once before collecting himself and leaving the library. He crossed the hall and opened the extravagantly gilded door to the prince’s suite, where George was thrashing in his massive circle bed. “Oh, Bladders,” exclaimed the boy, “thank God you’ve come! I’ve just had the most terrible nightmare!”
“What was it this time, Your Highness,” asked Edmund, as he shoved countless frilly purple bed curtains out of the way to see the prince’s face. “The one where Parliament cuts off your pudding allowance?”
“Oh, heaven be praised, not that one.”
“The one with...” Edmund shuddered, feeling a little nauseous at the thought. “With the radishes?”
“No, can you believe it! It’s the strangest thing, Edmund. This was a bad dream I’ve never had before. It was about that little musical cove that’s coming tomorrow.”
At this, Edmund raised an eyebrow. “The wunderkind, Your Highness?” He asked, attempting to hide his interest as he fluffed up Prince George’s pillows.
“Yes, yes, that’s the fellow! I dreamt he came in here and played his little trumpet—”
“Violin, sire.”
“—and then and there, my father took the crown off his own head and gave it to the little twerp! He crowned him king of England, Bladders, and put me out in the cold! Just think of it, Edmund. Me! His heir!”
“Quite tragic, Your Highness,” Edmund granted, once again utterly uninterested. It wasn’t until a little later he realized that perhaps, in fearing dethronement (whether figurative or literal) by the wunderkind, he and the prince had found their first thing in common.
Of course, short of brutal torture (by way of some medieval device meant to pull apart limbs, or having to sit through a retelling of George’s radish nightmare), he could never be made to admit that.
~~~
Like most evenings when the prince had a bad dream, he asked Edmund to stay with him now. Lying miserably in the red silk sheets, barred from leaving by Prince George’s arm over his chest and big snoring face on his shoulder, Edmund knew there was no returning to the library tonight.
Oh, well. He hoped that what little he’d had time to read about comic operas would suffice for his first meeting with the wunderkind.
At least the prince’s room didn’t reek of Baldrick. George smelled like musky floral perfumes from the far east, and always had, ever since Edmund could remember. He was just days old when Prince George was born, and had never known a life that was not spent in servitude to him; he sometimes joked to himself that those precious few hours before the royal heir’s arrival made up his most wonderful memories.
Edmund’s mother, a large, dark, handsome woman with a cutting wit, had gotten involved very temporarily with some landless lord, long since disgraced, called Blackadder. She went to the palace for employment, and found it as nursemaid to the pink-fresh screaming heir, an infant born just after her own. When it came time for Prince George to have his own little butler and companion, Edmund’s mother offered up her son.
And so, before he had even learned to read, the entire course of his life was decided.
He had just turned five the day his mother stole upwards of ten thousand pounds in jewelry from Queen Charlotte’s chamber, then subsequently disappeared, never to be heard from again. He was proud of his mother, in some perverse way—though she had never been gentle or loving or motherly toward him, he always idolized her resourceful cunning—but mostly he hated her, because she had not taken him with her.
Now, as he tried in vain to shrug some of the prince’s body weight off him, and stared in weary disgust at the purple bed curtains, he thought to himself that maybe the real reason he was so anxious to meet the well-traveled wunderkind was that he hoped he would take him away.
~~~
The whole court, it seemed, had turned out for this. Dukes, duchesses, lords, and ladies that Edmund had never even seen before waited grinning in the hall, chattering to each other in high, hushed whispers. Prince George, dressed very smartly in pale blue thanks to Edmund, and all five of his tiny siblings stood beside their mother, while Edmund and Baldrick were shoved to a distant corner. “As soon as Wolfie comes over, Mr. B, I’ll introduce you,” said the dogsbody, and Edmund rolled his eyes.
“For God’s sake, Baldrick, do you know how many people he’s probably met across Europe? Kings, emperors, beautiful princesses! He’s not going to remember you!”
“You’ll see, sir,” Baldrick insisted, beaming brightly, and Edmund could only turn away, utterly exasperated.
His heart was pounding, and he wasn’t sure why. What did he have to be nervous about? It wasn’t as if he was the one expected to perform a revolutionary new piece of music tonight. He stood on tiptoes, looking around the room anxiously. “Where is he,” he mumbled, and at almost the same instant, the doors opened, and the entire room went silent as four people entered.
“There he is!” Cried Baldrick, and Edmund shushed and elbowed him. He surveyed the four newcomers: the stern-looking man, the beautiful smiling woman, the tall girl clad in blush pink, and the boy. The wunderkind. At last.
He was tiny, just as the rumors suggested, perhaps not any taller than Edmund, though he was nearly five years older. He wore all yellow, bright yellow, like a canary, but for the pink of his cravat and his stockings, which matched his sister’s dress. Atop his tiny head sat a gargantuan powdered wig, and even from across the room Edmund noted his massive, protruding grey eyes. He looked stoic, and deeply serious, a fact which made Edmund smile; Baldrick was wrong, of course he was, this was no clown, this was the wunderkind.
King George approached, and the family all bowed low, and as the small boy bowed Edmund could see a wisp of yellow-blond hair escaping from his wig. When he rose up again, he was smiling, and immediately he and the king began chatting rapidly in German, and then something made the wunderkind laugh. It was a shrill, high, almost ear-piercing giggle—so unsophisticated, so entirely unbefitting of someone supposed to be brilliant—and Edmund stiffened, and then cringed. Oh, God. He could feel Baldrick bouncing excitedly beside him. Well, until he heard that irritating laugh expelled over a toilet joke, he would not yet despair.
After welcoming the rest of the family, the king scooped the boy up in his arms, and still they laughed, and went on laughing. Edmund glanced over at Prince George, who was glaring at the new arrival, or perhaps rival was a more fitting label. Led by the king, the musical German family made their way down the line of dukes, duchesses, lords, and ladies, greeting every last one, and Edmund, almost overcome with nerves, took up a silly old habit from much younger days and chewed on his fingernails to pass the time.
“He’s almost reached us, Mr. B.”
“I know, Balders. Please, don’t embarrass yourself. On second thought, feel free to embarrass yourself, only don’t embarrass me.”
When King George at last reached them, at the very end of the line, he began to say something in German, but was interrupted when the wunderkind’s entire face was possessed by a dramatic gasp, then a toothy, tonguey smile. “Baldrick?!” He exclaimed, in a thick accent, springing from the king’s arms and grabbing the dogsbody into an embrace. Baldrick was roaring with laughter, and the tiny canary-dressed boy was no less thrilled, and they smacked each other’s backs like old chums.
And Edmund, suddenly wishing they weren’t in the presence of the entire aristocracy so that he could roast Baldrick over a fire, glowered at this hideous celebrating pair until his eyes watered from not blinking for so long. “Oh, Wolfie, Wolfie,” said Baldrick, finally, tearing himself away long enough to point at Edmund. “Wolfie, Edmund Blackadder. Edmund Blackadder, Wolfie Mozart.”
“Guten tag, Herr Blackadder,” said the boy, still breathless, his arm round Baldrick’s shoulder. “Friend?” He pronounced, slowly and carefully, gesturing between Edmund and the dogsbody.
“God, no,” replied Edmund. “Hallo, Herr Mozart.” He did not know much German, but he had picked up a bit from listening to the king, and sitting in on the lessons that were wasted on the prince. “Willkommen in London. Ich bin der butler von Prinz George.”
The boy looked Edmund up and down, then nodded, smiling. He uttered something in his language that Edmund could not understand, but King George, still standing nearby, spoke quickly. “Herr Mozart says he likes your black clothes, Edmund.”
Edmund raised an eyebrow, and allowed himself a flicker of a smirk. “Your Majesty, will you please tell Herr Mozart that we make a humorous pair in my raven black and his canary yellow.”
The king relayed the message, and the wunderkind giggled wildly, frantically, that same shrill cackle that filled the whole room. Edmund made a mental note not to try making him laugh. Ever again.
“Wolfie,” said Baldrick, and now the boy turned back excitedly to his old friend, as if Edmund had never existed. “Mr. B,” and he pointed, “is sort of like our own wunderkind here.”
The boy looked at Baldrick for a few more seconds, processing the English words, then his eyes brightened. He followed the dogsbody’s gaze to Edmund, who shrugged and smiled, and then he looked back at Baldrick. In an instant, the two started giggling uproariously, and Edmund didn’t know why they were laughing and suddenly grew terrified that the wunderkind had remembered his dirty nappy. It was all he could do to rush out of the room before he vomited all over his shoes.
“Mr. B,” called Baldrick, predictably, not a full thirty seconds later. He placed a hand on Edmund’s back, then smoothed his curls back from his face gently. “Are you alright, sir? Didn’t you like Wolfie?”
“Leave me alone, Baldrick,” Edmund pleaded, still heaving and shuddering, as he spat on the floor that the dogsbody had painstakingly polished yesterday.
“Come back, sir! You’ve still got to meet Wolfie’s parents, and his sister Nannerl! She’s awfully pretty, Mr. B, and a great musician herself, you know!”
“I won’t lay eyes on that shrieking German bird boy again as long as I live. You go tell your friend Wolfie that he can shove his violin up his stuck-up canary backside, for all I care.”
“I don’t think the king’ll want to translate that for me, sir.”
“Just go!” Cried Edmund, and once Baldrick had finally done so, he groaned, and picked himself up, then took off his shoes and hurled them against the wall. He went down to the kitchen and into his stinky room, where he flopped into his bed and squeezed a pillow round his ears, hoping he wouldn’t hear any of the music.
~~~
But to drown it out was impossible. The festivities started in the early evening, immediately after the introductions, and they were loud, and they were ceaseless. About three hours in, Edmund gave up, and went upstairs to sit, knees pulled against his chest, outside the music hall.
To an enthralled audience, the wunderkind was playing his violin and singing. His voice was high and clear, the strings on his instrument perfectly tuned; the melody was so rich, so sweet, almost achingly so. King George then sat at his harpsichord, and Queen Charlotte stood beside the boy to sing with him, and the sounds they all made together made Edmund’s heart stir in his chest. And then he looked on in amazement while the boy’s sister, all smiles, tied a blindfold over her brother’s eyes, then led him to the piano as the crowd shouted out pieces by Handel and Bach and Haydn. And the wunderkind, gleefully, played every single one.
The party dissolved into something decidedly less refined and more raucous, and Edmund peered round the doorframe to watch Nannerl spinning Prince George around, and all George’s little siblings jumping and giggling, and even the king and queen taking to the dance floor while their nobility cheered and laughed. And then there was the wunderkind, off in the corner with his father, who was gripping the boy’s shoulder and whispering in his ear. The wunderkind was nodding seriously, and his large grey eyes looked tired, and his small fingers clung only loosely to the neck of his violin.
Suddenly, he looked up, and Edmund gasped as he felt the boy’s eyes find his. He scooted away from the doorframe and held his breath, mortified that he’d been spotted and hoping the wunderkind would do him the kindness of pretending he hadn’t noticed.
No. A moment later, there he was, peeking down the hallway and finding Edmund. He grinned. After his long night of performing, his pale face was flushed and rosy, powdered wig all disheveled. He slumped down onto the floor, against the wall, beside Edmund, who eyed him warily.
“Hallo, Edmund.”
“Hallo, Wolfie.”
The boy grinned again, looking Edmund straight in the eye this time. He extended a hand. “Dance?” He asked, and despite his better judgment, Edmund grumbled oh, God, why not. The wunderkind laughed, and yanked the little butler up to his feet, and with only their hands joined they jumped up and down, clumsily and stupidly, from one end of the hallway to the other, and back again, and back again, and back again. Edmund was not laughing, despite how hysterical the older boy seemed to find all of this; but he did watch the wunderkind curiously, thinking how foolish he’d been to hope that this little musical cove could ever be his escape.