The Lightstep (17 page)

She looked at him levelly. 'You are . . . most frank, Captain. Tell
me. Whom do you suppose that I may hate?'

'Perhaps it is Count Balcke-Horneswerden.'

'Oh,' she said, as if she had thought he would name someone
else.

She considered it. Perhaps she nodded, slightly. But at length
she said, 'What we seek is the truth about why my brother died,
Captain. That is all.'

He spread his hands. 'So. Whose truth do you mean?'

'I do not believe there is more than one truth. To say otherwise
is to be like Pilate, who demanded "what is truth?" of the
Lord Our Saviour.'

'I have always felt that he had a point,' said Wéry.

He might also say that the various political factions in the city
would all seek to use any testimony given to the Commission for
their own purposes. But she would know that. He could guess
how she might answer him . . .

In the end, she was here before him. He could not refuse her.

'Very well,' he said. 'You will have to remind me of your
officer's name.'

'Major Jean-Marie Lanard.'

He repeated it to himself. Then he nodded. 'I will do what I
can. At present, that will be nothing. In a week or a fortnight, it
is likely that the Prince's decree will be less rigorously
implemented, and there may be a chance. No, my ladies. Please
remember, you have said that your Major Lanard has gone to
assume other duties. He will not be free of those quickly and
therefore it is best that we take our time.'

'Captain . . . I am grateful. And if there is anything we may do
for you, I beg that you will name it.'

I beg that you will name it.
He must have said those very words
to her, on the steps at Adelsheim.

'I do not think . . .'

Suddenly he frowned. A thought had occurred. He looked at
Anna Poppenstahl. 'Your relatives beyond the Rhine, madame.
Do you have news of them?'

She blinked at the question. 'I have indeed. Although I fear
their condition is a wretched one. My cousin Ludwig is well, but
his state is much reduced by the war. The impositions of the
French army are far heavier than any he had to endure from his
former ruler. And his nephew Maximilian is not well, for he had
high hopes of the Revolution when it began, and is much
afflicted by how it has turned out . . .'

He listened, understanding that Madame Poppenstahl,
although wishing him no particular ill-will, was determined to
return the conversation to the ordinary polite gossip that was the
only intimacy permissible with single young men such as him.
And as he listened he tried hard not to betray that he already
knew as much and more of Ludwig and Maximilian Jürich as she
did. They would guess of course. Was this wise? He was not dicing
with someone's honour, now, but with lives.

'Terrible!' he murmured. 'How you must wish to comfort
them.'

'It is my earnest wish to visit them as soon as I may,' said the
simple woman. 'When Lady Adelsheim is able to release me.'

'I see. But in the meantime are you able to correspond with
your cousins, and perhaps send them little luxuries that they
cannot now obtain in their territory?'

Madame Poppenstahl shook her head sadly.

'Letters may pass, although they may be opened. But not
goods, unless they are stoutly accompanied. I declare the soldiers
will steal anything bigger than a thimble.'

'Indeed,' sighed Wéry.

Of course letters were opened. That did not worry him. No
censor or spy would make anything of the communications he
was thinking of – so long as their destination could be disguised.

Maria von Adelsheim was watching him very closely. Had she
already guessed what he was going to propose?

'Well,' he said, and acted a light laugh. 'If by chance you should
open your letters and find within them something that is not
after all for you, perhaps you would forward it on to me?'

'Why, I do not know how . . .' began the woman dubiously.

'Anna . . .' said the girl, and laid her hand on her chaperon's arm.

She had not taken her eyes off Wéry's face. She was weighing
his words. She would be wondering what these letters were, that
somehow could not come to him directly: these letters for an
"aide" to the Prince. And she must be able to make guesses. She
had understood what he was asking.

'So, Captain. We make something of a devil's bargain, I think,'
she said at last.

'A fearful city is full of devils,' said Wéry. 'Let us try to be
honest devils with one another.'

'Maria!' said Poppenstahl, alarmed at last.

Maria von Adelsheim was still watching him. She was trying
to read the future in his face. Now she must decide.

'How will they know that they may pass these packages to us?'
she asked.

'The next time you write to the Jürichs, send a man you can
trust. Let him use my name in the hearing of the household. It
will be enough.'

It crossed his mind that if he were truly being an 'honest' devil,
he should speak to them more about the dangers – the possibility
that if something went wrong their man might be arrested,
imprisoned, interrogated, executed. But it would not do to
frighten them. It would not do to have Poppenstahl running
to Lady Adelsheim about the wild plan into which her daughter
was entering. So long as the courier knew no more than he had
told them, and did no more than he had said, it should be well.

'And for my part,' he said, 'I vow to you that I will do my best
to obtain what you want. If it proves impossible, then I think it is
better that none of us remember what has passed between us.'

'I hope – and believe – that it will prove possible, Captain. And
we will do as you ask. No, Anna, I am sure this is the right
thing. We will tell Mother that a nameless gentleman has undertaken
to provide the passport in a few weeks' time, when the
clerks will be less conscientious about this decree. All that he
requires is that we be discreet. It is the best that we can hope
for.'

'Now, Captain,' she went on, with a sudden brightness in her
tone. 'I wish to trespass a moment more upon your courtesy. Tell
me, for I have been longing to know, how you find this city as a
home from home?'

I wish to trespass a moment more.
That meant:
After this topic I will
leave.
She had begun the ritual politenesses of departure. He was
sorry. He did not want her to go. Ordinarily he had little time for
small talk. Now, in her presence, he wished that he could
fascinate, sparkle, juggle a dozen witticisms and conjure back that
delighted laughter, so that she might stay a little longer.

'I grow fond of it,' he said. 'It is more fortunate in its weather
than Brussels or Paris. The people are kind, the ladies clever as
well as beautiful . . .' This last was an attempt to win another smile
from her, but she made no sign.'. . . In their dancing as well as
their looks,' he stumbled on. 'At the Prince's ball early this
summer I saw a dance performed by the ladies alone. It reminded
me very much of my home in the countryside of Brabant, which
was where I last saw such a thing. I hope we will see more of it
this season.'

'Oh, you mean the Lightstep?' she asked.

'I believe that was its name here, yes. In Brabant it was one of
the May dances. The country women dance it as a charm . . .' He
broke off, realizing that it would probably not be delicate to say
what the charm was supposed to do.

She was looking at him. There was a mischievous smile on her
lips. 'That is strange,' she said. 'For so do we.'

His heart thumped. Anna Poppenstahl, loudly clearing her
throat, might never have existed.

'And it is apt, is it not?' she went on. 'To play with a man, after
all, is to play with fire.'

'So . . . so it is sometimes said. Although I have felt it apt in
another way. A dance has moves. It is a process. The dancers turn
this way, turn that, but the end is already determined. The end of
a courtship is of course not determined, but there is nevertheless
an inevitability about it. The partners are expected to surrender
to one another. If they do not, the onlookers would say that the
courtship had gone wrong.'

Her eyes watched him pick his way along the very fringes of
the impermissible. Why had he not seen before how pale they
were?
(Hey, Michel – have you ever looked at somebody?)
They were
pale and blue and clear. And why had he thought her jaw too
heavy? It was beautiful and full, curving to the throat. He was
beginning to blush. He knew it. 'Shall I . . .' he stammered. 'Er . . .
Shall I see you dance it soon?'

Her eyes dropped at once. 'When I am out of mourning, of
course.'

'Oh.'
Idiot! Damned idiot! '
Of course. Forgive me.'

'There is nothing to forgive,' she sighed.

Her eyes strayed around the barrack room, recalling to her
where she was, and why. 'Captain, you have been most kind . . .'

And now she was rising, and he was rising with her.

The women stopped in the door for Poppenstahl to rearrange
Maria's cape. Poppenstahl bustled anxiously about her charge, as
if by folding and patting the thing neatly enough into shape she
might erase any trace of the conversation they had just had, with
all its unfortunate trespasses. The girl exclaimed, 'It is all right,
Anna. Really it is quite warm enough . . .' mingling amusement
and exasperation. And Wéry remembered Albrecht's hand on his
own shoulder, that first evening in Balcke's quarters, and his own
voice gasping,
'I'm all right, I'm all right'
as he stood still dripping
with Rhine water among the ring of officers.

He felt no resentment towards Poppenstahl. She was only
doing her duty as she should. He could even be sorry, now, that
he had become angry with her at all. There was no harm in
the woman, and much good. The very clumsiness with which she
had offered her bribe showed that. And whatever influence
the mother had had in the education of the young Albrecht
and Maria, it would not be to Lady Adelsheim that
they owed whatever humanity they had learned in their
childhoods.

He followed them to the doorway and stood there as they
stepped out into the sunlight of the yard. And for an instant the
girl looked back, and caught his eye. She was smiling as she
dropped her veil.

I'm a fool, he thought.

A fool, he thought again, as he paced the room where she had
spent all those minutes in his company. And he was a traitor, too,
to all the men who counted him a comrade.

He did not feel foolish. He felt . . .
light.
Lucky, perhaps: as if
some hope or opportunity had opened somewhere, even if he
could not quite think what it was or why his circumstances could
suddenly be so much more promising than they appeared to be.
His mind grappled cheerfully with the impossibilities of extracting
a passport for an enemy officer from the palace. And – heaven
willing – he might even have solved the problem of communicating
with the Rhineland. A devil's bargain. Yes, but a good one,
surely . . .

Baron Altmantz put his head around the door, learned that it
had been 'about her brother mostly' and left muttering, 'Yes, of
course, a good man. Such a waste . . .'

At last Wéry made his way up to his office. It was a narrow
room of bare and dusty boards. The walls were plain whitewash.
There were two small windows, a fireplace and the doorway to
an even smaller room where he slept. The only furniture was his
desk, his chair, and the cabinet in which he kept his unimportant
papers.

The only decoration was a painting of the head of Christ, in
agony upon the cross. It was small, in a plain frame, but in that
sparsely-furnished room with the white walls the image jumped
forcefully to the eye of anyone who came in.

In coarse strokes the artist had shown a face twisted in
horrible pain. The mouth hung open in a silent howl, missing
teeth and dribbling a dark fluid. The eyes rolled, and the whites
showed strongly whenever the light outside began to fail. Wéry
did not need telling that the artist had seen death for himself, or
knew what it was to suffer agony. It was stamped on the canvas
for anyone to see.

He walked up to it and peered at it closely. The background
showed a landscape, peopled with allegorical figures, none of
which seemed at all remarkable beside the tormented head. He
studied them carefully, but in vain. There was nothing there that
he had not found already.

The rustle of paper, the scratch of a pen, were loud in the
Prince's antechamber at dawn.

'This is your promotion to Major,' said Bergesrode tersely,
holding out a letter.

'Congratulations,' added Fernhausen.

Wéry raised an eyebrow. 'Promotion? For one report?'

Less than half the captains in the hussar regiment would ever
reach the rank of Major. Those that did would mostly be in their
forties.

'No,' said Bergesrode. 'It's because he likes officers who think
more about what they do than about who they are. And we've
too few.'

'Thank you.'

'Don't thank me. If you must thank anyone, thank yourself.
He's had his eye on you for a while.'

Wéry took the letter, opened it, and glanced down the page.
He was conscious of the two secretaries watching him, in the
fading glow of their lamps and the growing light from
the windows. He was conscious, too, of the silent, closed doors
to the inner room where the Prince himself had his office. It was
a strange feeling, to think that he could rise from his place, walk
over and throw open the doors to reveal the man who had
elevated him, there at his desk.

It would be perfectly possible. It was only a matter of will and
muscle. He had heard that the walls and ceilings of the Prince's
chamber were covered with a great
trompe l'oeil
painting of
Heaven. It was supposed to be famous. He was curious to see
what it looked like, and what the Prince looked like too, heavy eyed
in the early morning with scattered papers before him.

And yet he could not do it. All the barriers of thought and
habit and expectation, in his own mind and in those of the men
before him, kept him fast in his chair, and his eyes on the
paper before him.

The commission was lengthy, flowery, and as full of unnecessary
words as Erzberg's army was of unnecessary officers. It
did not make him feel any different.

'Thank you,' he said at length. 'I have just one question.'

'What is it?'

'Does a major in His Highness's service merit a clerk . . . ? No,
it matters!' he insisted, reading the secretaries' expressions. 'I am
spending too much time copying reports. It is keeping me from
important work. And there must be someone to receive them and
pass them on if I am occupied.'

'We have a hundred clerks,' sighed Fernhausen. 'The problem
is to find the right one.'

The problem was to find a clerk who would work, who could
understand what was important and yet would not blab about it,
who would not drink or gamble. Anyone that good would be
jealously guarded by the man he was already working for.

'I had thought, if we could not find the right man at once, that
I might borrow one from the Office of the First Minister to
begin with,' said Wéry gently. 'For one or two days a week, only.
He could attend to his normal duties the rest of the time.'

The idea had come in the small hours of the night. Rather
than try to persuade a man in Gianovi's office to give him a passport,
why not persuade someone else to give him the man? Then
the clerk could be in one office one day, in another the next, and
no one would notice or care which papers he signed where. Only
let him have a week to learn to know the fellow and then . . .

The two secretaries were looking at each other doubtfully. But
they would rather pick a fight with the First Minister than part
with one of their own.

'We'll do our best,' said Bergesrode.

'Thank you.'

If it did not work, he would have to try something else.

'I only said we would do our best. Now, important matters.
What do you know about this coup in Paris?'

'Coup? Nothing at all. Has there been one?'

Bergesrode's mouth twitched in a rare sign of amusement. He
enjoyed knowing more than his intelligence officer. 'The news
came in overnight. A General Augereau took his troops into the
city. Two of the Directory have been purged.'

'Have they! Which ones?'

'Barthélemy has been arrested. And Carnot has fled across the
Rhine.'

'Has he!'

'Well? What does it mean?'

(What did it mean? It could mean a thousand things!)

'Are they more likely to attack us, or less?'

Wéry eased himself back in his chair. A coup by the army,
against the Directors of France? In the past such news would have
filled him with excitement. The fall of the Girondins he had
thought would be the beginning of the end. Then Thermidor,
and the fall of Robespierre – surely, this time, it would be the
beginning of the end! But there had been so many twists and
turns in France over the years. There was an awful stability in the
way the Revolution devoured its leaders. He could no longer
believe in a dawn that rose from Paris.

'Augereau is Bonaparte's man – or was, in Italy,' he mused.

'So?'

'It is hard to say. Yes, I suppose it makes an attack more likely.'

'Do not suppose. Find out! It's what we keep you for, isn't it?'

Bergesrode was glaring at him. Any congratulation in the
priest's manner had vanished. They were back to the cold stare,
the atmosphere of demand and urgency that surrounded the man
like the air he breathed.

'I'll do my best,' said Wéry smoothly, borrowing Bergesrode's
phrase from moments before. 'But . . . as you know, I came to talk
about other matters.'

'About the Illuminati?'

Wéry shrugged. He was no more ready to talk about the
Illuminati than he was to talk about coups. If the Prince's treasury
could not afford the cost of an agent in Paris, he was damned if
he was going to spend what it could afford on agents in
Erzberg.

'About the defence of the city, principally.'

'Very well, tell me.'

'It is possible – with enough determination.'

'Tell me how.'

The priest's eyes betrayed not a wink of emotion as Wéry outlined
the enormity of what must be done.

Lady Adelsheim, surrounded in the green satin of her dress that
spread widely upon the settee, broke off from her other conversation
to stare at her daughter.

'Anna – to Mainz?' she repeated.

'She is much concerned, Mother,' said Maria humbly. 'It would
be a kindness to let her go.'

'She has not spoken to me of it.'

Behind Lady Adelsheim, the poet Icht stood patiently at the
fireplace, waiting for her attention to swing back to him.

'Of course she will not, Mother. You know Anna. And if we
press her of course she will deny it. But it is plain, nonetheless.
You yourself have remarked,' she went on, appealing with her
eyes to Icht,'how much she is anxious to visit her cousins, if only
there were truly peace.'

'I recall it, my Lady,' said Icht dutifully.

'I recall it too,' said Lady Adelsheim. 'I was speaking with the
Knight von Uhnen in this very room. My purpose was to expose
the perfidy of the Emperor and the Prince concerning the status
of the Rhineland. But that question is not settled yet. Besides,
Maria, so long as you are here in Erzberg you must have a
companion. You are too wilful, and too ready to forget you are in
mourning.'

Her brow arched as she spoke, as if it were only too
pitifully
obvious that Maria was more interested in winning freedom for
herself than in relieving Anna's concerns.

Maria dropped her eyes, feigning confusion.

'Icht?' said Mother, resuming her other conversation.

'Oh, I agree with you, my Lady. The chief fault of the
Lutherans is that they do not admit private confession. Therefore
they throw too much on the conscience of the individual.'

'Precisely what I said,' said Mother.

'Perhaps, then,' murmured Maria. 'Perhaps it would be best if
I were to accompany Anna when she goes. I – would be willing
to, Mother.'

'Really! Why this?'

'She is . . . dear to me. I knew I would miss her when she
went.' Maria knew that she must talk as if it were absolutely
settled that Anna should go and that the only question remaining
was how Anna was to chaperon her at the same time. 'And it
would keep me occupied, Mother.'

'I do not see how. There is almost no one left, west of the
Rhine.'

Maria hesitated.

'I think there must be some people left, Mother,' she said.
'Indeed we know that Anna's cousins are there, and they cannot
be the only ones!'

'You are impertinent, Maria. Of course I meant that there is
no one of quality there – for the very good reason that they all
seem to have fled to us! I do not doubt that Anna's cousins are
honest enough, but they are not of our rank. In any case you will
find little frivolity in the poor Rhineland at present.
Although . . .' She put her head on one side and looked
penetratingly at her daughter. 'Although for that reason it might
be good for you, indeed. You are too wont to run simpering to
the young men.'

'Indeed I do not think so, Mother!'

'Oh, you may say it. Perhaps you even believe it. But I saw you
today at the levee, looking and looking among them. Whoever it
was you were seeking was not there. Was it that man Wéry
perhaps? Now he is Major Wéry, we understand! Really! So swift
a promotion, one dreads to think what the man will yet become!
It was very improper of you to have called on him in his barracks,
Maria, and thoughtless for the memory of Albrecht too.'

'Indeed, Mother, it is not true . . .'

(How had she known? Dear Virgin – how had she known?)

'Not true? I may sometimes be mistaken, but I do not think
so.' And with that she turned back to Icht and in almost the same
breath she said, 'Yet I do not see why confession must be made
to a priest.'

'My Lady! Absolution is a sacrament and must be properly
administered.'

'Indeed it must. But one does not need to be a member of the
Guild of Ironworkers to have the
ability
to work iron. One needs
to be a member only so that other members will permit one to
do so. Why must one be a member of the priesthood to be able
to hear confession? I am sure I could do as well as any of them.'

She looked back to Maria and lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

'Mother,' said Maria, rallying from her surprise. 'It is true that
I accompanied Anna to the hussar barracks. You will recall
that you asked Anna to obtain a passport for Major Lanard. And
we did not know which way to turn . . .'

'Many women, and all men, may be led,' said her mother
simply. 'Anna is no different. It would be a simple thing to speak
of Wéry in such a way as to make her think she should go to
him. That is plain. You are learning to direct others. It is what I
expect of you . . .'

Johann, one of the footmen had entered softly. Lady
Adelsheim waved him forward with one finger even as she
continued speaking.

'. . . But the ends to which you manage them should not be
your own gratification. We have serious business to attend to. This
morning I am awaiting . . .' she examined the card that Johann
produced for her. 'Löhm!' she cried. 'And behold, he is here.'

'He claims he has an appointment with you, my Lady.'

'Indeed he has,' said Lady Adelsheim. 'But he must wait a
moment longer, while I find some papers. We have finished,
Maria. You may go now.'

'Am I then to accompany Anna, mother?'

'I have not yet said that she should go. I do not see how your
father could afford it at present. But yes, when she does, I believe
you should.'

Maria found she was shaken – trembling, even – as she closed the
door of her mother's study. How had Mother known about
the visit to the barracks? Anna had promised she would not speak
of it. Anna did not break her promises willingly, whatever
misgivings she might have.

No, it would have come from the coachman or possibly gossip
from someone acquainted with the hussars. But that she should
have found out so quickly! Sometimes her ability to detect the
thoughts of others was like witchcraft.

Tell me. Whom do you suppose that I may hate?

Yesterday Michel Wéry had looked her in the eye and talked
of hatred. In that instant she had assumed he was talking of
Mother. He had not been. Yet even so he too seemed to have read
her thoughts. He had recognized in her something she had barely
known herself, and had spoken to it. It had been strange, and
awful.

Did she hate Balcke-Horneswerden? She supposed so. She
could hate anyone who robbed her of Albrecht.

You did not love him as I did!

But she had not been defeated, this time. Not altogether.
Mother had said that 'when' Anna went, Maria would go too. Of
course Mother had not yet consented to think about when
'when' might be. She would make difficulties about money and
such until she had decided for herself that it was necessary. And
she would be suspicious if Maria approached her again. So Anna
would have to be coaxed (and coached) into doing it. That would
take time. Maria did not know how much time she had.

Because it would have to be Anna. There was no 'man she
could trust' in the house. Not in her mother's house, with Mother
sitting over them all like a great spider, eight-eyed and casting
web after web until nothing could move without bringing her
scuttling down the threads to pounce on whatever was going on.
None of the servants were safe. The only person she could trust,
and who could have a reason to go, was Anna. And because the
journey might be difficult, and possibly dangerous despite
the peace, Maria herself would have to go too. She could not let
Anna go alone.

But how ridiculous of Mother to accuse her so! ('Simpering
to the young men' indeed!)

Yes, she had been looking for someone at Lady Jenz's levee.
Yes, it had in fact been Major Wéry she had been looking for.
Now that she had realized that she herself must go to the Rhine,
she needed to hear much more about whom she was going to
and what the difficulties might be. Distances, documents, what
to take and what to leave behind – she needed to know these
things. Was this not good reason – even if one she could never
confess to Mother?