Chapter 44 Magellan #2
Godwin winked at Magellan and said to her, “And I do look on you like a sister.” He slapped Rhys heartily on the back to help him stop coughing.
“That makes you Taliesin. Noble Bard. Gwynedd’s devoted lover.
Master poet. Writer of romantic myths. And a Druid shaman who, like Merlin, could prophesize the future if you read the histories. ”
Magellan met Rhys’s eyes across the table.
For all of Godwin’s outrageous statements, the three of them had been brought together by some kind of divine providence.
The Ley Lines had reunited them within the pathways of the labyrinth.
They were each from different times, yet tied together by the quest and an ancient diary that alluded to previous lives they could not remember.
“It is an enticing thought.” Godwin swirled his wine.
“What if we could remember? Not just one lifetime but all our previous lives? Every soul memory. What if there was a medicine . . . a drug . . . that could enable all our memories to return?” Godwin sat back, contemplating the idea.
“Like lost dreams. How I would love to know.”
It was a tantalizing thought. Magellan had never considered having lived a life before this one—or living one after this life ended.
The whole idea of reincarnation challenged her sense of self.
If every life was a new identity, with each one came a new nationality, a new race, religion, culture, and set of beliefs.
To have a myriad of lifetimes allowed no single life to define oneself.
No single set of beliefs out of countless others were better or right. Suddenly the ego wasn’t so important.
Magellan had been too busy living her own life to contemplate another one. She had met people she felt an affinity for, as if she already knew them on some level, but was it because of a past life? Did forgotten memories from previous lives leave their echoes behind?
Gwynedd had written how meeting Taliesin had filled her with the sense of hiraeth, a homesickness for a place one can never return to. Perhaps the feeling was homesickness for a lifetime one could never remember.
Gwynedd believed she and Taliesin had loved each other before.
Just as Magellan knew she and Rhys shared soul memories on some deeper level, and she didn’t need a drug or a pill to feel it.
She could not explain the love she felt for Rhys, or the affinity she had for Godwin.
They all three had come together to fulfill this mission, and there was still one more woman to find.
Magellan spent days in the library reading about the history of England, trying to figure out who the composer could be.
When she became too overwhelmed, she would play the piano in the salon.
There was no grand conservatory yet, no Streicher piano, no harp, or collection of instruments.
Rhys told her in private how all those things came later after Godwin married Birgit.
The two newlyweds had brought a trove of instruments back with them from Vienna.
When he said that, Magellan gasped. Suddenly the last piece fell into place.
The countess was from Austria.
Of course! At that realization, goose bumps rained down her body like a waterfall.
The last piece of the song was waiting for her in Austria.
And she knew who had it. Another woman with immense musical talent who had been eclipsed by a famous brother.
Like Fanny with Felix Mendelssohn. Like Gwynedd with Merlin.
Magellan’s hands grew still on the piano. It was well past midnight. She had been playing for Rhys and Godwin after a particularly long dinner. She’d known their time at Hereford Manor was ticking down. The clock had finally stopped.
Rhys was staring at her in concern. “What is it?”
“When does Godwin meet the countess?”
Godwin shot up out of his chair as if he’d sat on a sharp object and interjected dramatically, “Not a word! I don’t want to know anything about my life.”
“But—”
“It’s not negotiable. I know my son. His name. His face. I’ve seen the man he will become. It is enough!” He went over to the mantel and turned his back on them to stare into the fire in the hearth. “It is enough,” he repeated quietly.
Magellan stared at Rhys, wanting to say more. She would have to wait for Godwin to leave the room.
Rhys’s mother was from Austria. Godwin must meet Birgit there.
She saw the moment Rhys realized it too. The light in his eyes.
“We have to go to Vienna,” Rhys announced with urgency, sounding breathless with understanding. “Right away, the three of us.”
Godwin was livid. “I told you I cannot know—”
“And you don’t need to know anything besides that,” Rhys shot back. “But you do have to go to Austria before the end of the year. I’ll say no more on that front, except it’s imperative you go, and we need to go too.”
Godwin choked on a disbelieving laugh. “You’re bamming me! I take it I did not pay enough for your schooling when you were younger. You do know Austria is at war with France? It was just declared this spring, and Napoleon has returned from Egypt.”
“Trust me. I do know my history. It’s going to get much worse after Napoleon declares himself emperor in 1804.”
“What?” Godwin looked horrified.
“The war will be long and bloody. But we still must go,” Rhys said stubbornly. He turned to Magellan. “Who is it we’re meant to see?”
“Mozart’s sister,” she told them, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
“Mozart’s sister?” Godwin sputtered with surprise. “Mozart has a sister? Can she play music?”
Magellan made a grimacing face, as if she’d bitten into a sour pickle.
She then went on to explain not only did Mozart have a sister who could play music, she was a prodigy too like her brother.
However, unlike her brother, she had been forbidden to perform as she grew older because she was on her way to becoming a woman.
Maria Anna Mozart, better known as Nannerl, had been born five years ahead of Wolfgang.
She played the harpsichord like a master, the violin in secret, and her voice was called “the golden voice.” She composed her own music, though no compositions survived her death.
Growing up, she toured with her brother until she was eighteen and was then forced to “retire.” When she was thirty-three, she bowed to her father’s wishes and married an older man who had been widowed twice before.
She was to care for his five children. The man was a magistrate, and they lived in the tiny town of Saint Gilgen in Austria.
This woman, who had toured and played concerts in Munich, Vienna, Paris, London, Switzerland, The Hague, and Germany, had been consigned to a quiet life of obscurity.
She gave piano lessons while her brother dazzled Europe and later the world, securing his place in the bowels of history.
Wolfgang died young in 1791, but his music and name would live on, while Nannerl’s would become a side note: Mozart’s sister. Never a person unto herself.
Only later did the twenty-first century begin a search and rescue through the past, resurrecting women forgotten in history books like digging for gold.
In Magellan’s lifetime there’d been a whole discovery and celebration of women composers and musicians, and Nannerl rightfully had taken her place with the rest. These women carried inside of them music so powerful it could change the world.
Godwin was pacing. “You want to just go traipsing through the fighting? There is a battle in Zurich going on right now!” He looked to Rhys as if he could talk him out of it.
“I do not want to do anything of the sort. But we’re meant to go.” Rhys put his hand in hers in a show of solidarity. “We have to brazen it out.”
“Brazen it out? Brazen it out?” Godwin passed a hand over his face and let out a pained sigh. “Lud.”
“Godwin,” Magellan pressed the point home, “this is not up to us. There is a greater plan at work. The woman we need is there.” As well as your future wife, though she didn’t say it.
“Well, the greater plan has chosen a bang-up inconvenient time. The War Office has warned against travel. It will take careful planning to organize the journey for us. We can’t just go waltzing across the Continent on a whim!”
“This is not a whim, and it can be done,” Rhys said. “It will be done, for I know you already did it.”
“Not another word,” Godwin warned him and then let out a long-suffering breath. “Fine!” He threw up his hands in surrender and began pacing again as he formed a plan. “I know alchemists in Europe. I will have to write to them to give us shelter, escort, and protection. It will take time.”
“We don’t have time,” she reminded him.
“Then I’ll write quickly,” Godwin retorted.
“Excellent, for we are going,” Rhys stated.
“I will write my letters.” Godwin gave them a stern scowl. “I will have to introduce you as husband and wife.”
Rhys’s cheeks turned pink as he said, “Then perhaps there is time for you to visit the Archbishop of Canterbury? I believe you liked to boast how you were friends.”
Godwin looked from Rhys to her and laughed out loud. “Truly?”
Rhys nodded. “I would hate to make a liar out of you, Father.”
Confused, Magellan glanced from Rhys to Godwin. “Why does he need to visit the Archbishop of Canterbury?”
“I’ll let you explain it to her.” Godwin winked and went to leave. “I have a trip to Austria to plan and an archbishop to woo.” He shut the door on his way out, giving them privacy.
“Why does he need to see the Archbishop of Canterbury?” she asked again.
Rhys suddenly looked bashful as he came and sat beside her on the piano bench. It was the first time in days they’d been alone.
He took her hand and kissed it. “Only the archbishop can grant a special wedding license so couples may marry immediately without having to wait for banns to be read.”
She stared at him. A silent “Oh” forming on her lips. The shy, tender look on his face made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
He took both of her hands in his. “I believe I am.”
Magellan stared at him, speechless, breathless. She had too many conflicting emotions coursing through her to focus on one. She had been hurtled across centuries chasing a song but never considered she would get married along the way.
She met his eyes, seeing the beautiful light within them.
Married in 1799. It was mad. It was crazy.
But then, she had surrendered her sanity a long time ago, perhaps that day at the church in Manhattan when she opened a time portal with Bach.
Considering all that had happened since then, marrying Rhys in 1799 before heading to Austria to find Mozart’s sister made absolute perfect sense.
She fleetingly thought, she only wished Crystal could be here to witness a wedding across centuries.
With a “Yes,” she launched into his arms.
In music there is no greater power than a love song, and the Earl of Liron—guardian of the labyrinth, protector of the diary, and the beautiful soul she had traversed time with, a man whose name meant sing to me—was hers.