The Lightstep (25 page)

'I suppose it is natural that the men should feel strongly,'
she said in a low voice. 'But I hope that no ill-will comes
of it.'

Madame Kaus looked at her. The laughter was gone from her
face and in her eyes was the same weary look that she had seen
in Emilia Jürich's. She put a hand on Maria's arm – perhaps it was
to reassure both of them.

'I believe not,' she said in a low voice. 'For my sister's sake and
mine, if not for their own. But it is hard. Hofmeister tries my
husband sorely. It is unwise of him, as well as unkind. Oh, that
wretched psalm! He
must
not speak like that. Sometimes I believe
he is willing us to denounce him, as if that would prove him right
about the evil of it all. And yet we are lucky, compared to so
many. Have you seen your cousin Maximilian?' she asked Anna,
who had joined them.

'I called on him in his room before dinner,' said Anna sadly.
'He knew me. Certainly he did. But I do not think he cared.'

'I am very sorry,' said Madame Kaus.

That night Maria dreamed. She was sitting in a dark room, in a
house she knew quite well, but could not remember from where.
Friends and members of her family came and went through the
doors of the room. She was waiting for one of them to stop and
say something to her: something important. But those that did
speak to her only said that she should go on waiting, and others
seemed to pass without paying her any attention. Gradually the
comings and goings ceased. She watched the doors, and they did
not open. And after a while she understood that she was alone.
Everyone else had gone, and left her. And a great sense of
desperation and urgency rose in her, for there was still something
important, something very important, that she should know, and
know soon. Terrible things would happen if she were not told
quickly. But all the people who could tell her were gone.

Then, as the gloom deepened around the far corners of the
room, she realized that not everyone had disappeared.
Somewhere on another storey, behind another door, there was
someone else. And she and they were alone in the house together.

She woke, sick and urgent in the darkness. Her bedroom had
two windows, but the night outside was very black. She could see
almost nothing. The bedclothes, the little night noises, the very
thickness of the air were all strange. She thought of the other
people in the house, all asleep: Ludwig, the judge; his wife; his
lunatic nephew; the servants, the horses, all around her. She
thought of the leagues and leagues that lay between herself and
home.

Why had she come? She longed to fly home at once, and be
safe. But that was impossible. And the long, long journey to dawn
seemed impossible, too.

She lay awake, and listened.

Major Jean-Marie Lanard, of the Army of the Republic of
France, stood in the sunlit field below the walls of the city.
He was dressed in an immaculate blue-and-white uniform and
looked at the world with pale eyes and a permanent, slight smile
upon his lips, as if he was amused by what he saw.

All the gaiety of Erzberg thronged around him. They had
come, in their carriages and glittering cloths, with their bonnets
and buckles and polished boots, to fete him as a society hero, and
to watch the final surrender of the war party. They gathered in a
long, chattering, brightly-coloured crowd in the mild October
sun. Among them were a number – chiefly the young married
men and women – who wore the new fashions that were emerging
from France: simpler, country-style dresses for the ladies, with
plumes of feathers in the hair. For the men, no powder, no wigs,
no swords, and coats with no embroidery. Bobbing in the sea of
tricorns, a dozen high-crowned, narrow-brimmed hats punched
towards the sky.

Between the crowd and the moat a rope had been pegged at
ankle-height, patrolled by grey-uniformed engineers who now
and again called respectfully to persons at the front of the crowd
to
move back, please, sir; move back.
The crowd obeyed, good humouredly,
and went on chatting, and the wind wavered over
the bonnets and tall hats, teasing feathers and light veils and planting
its cold kiss on a hundred wealthy cheeks.

An elderly engineer officer was watching the wall, shading his
eyes with his hand. 'It will be any minute now, sirs,' he said.

'As it has been for the past quarter hour, I believe,' said the
Frenchman cheerfully. 'But perhaps they have changed their
minds after all, and are readying the guns instead.'

Someone near him laughed, nervously.

'Oh, I am serious, madame,' said Lanard. 'You should stand well
away from me. You can never tell what these heroes will decide
to do— Ah, no, I am mistaken. See there your signal, Captain.'

'That's it! That's it!' cried the engineer. At his nod the soldier
beside him lifted a great pale flag and waved it in a wide arc above
his head. On the point of the nearest bastion, another flag echoed
it. The bearer, a tiny figure, disappeared.

Hundreds of eyes watched the wall. Nothing happened.

'Perhaps the powder . . .' began Lanard.

Smoke billowed in a thick, tight cloud below the ramparts.
The line of the wall above it sagged gently, and disappeared in an
up-rush of dust and rubble. The great, rolling
boom!
reached the
crowd, accompanied by the roar of tons of stone pouring down
into the ditch.

'Oooh!' they cried, and some started clapping.

The cloud of dust hung, and hung, obscuring the wall. Slowly
it parted. In the angle between two great bastions the neat lines
of ramparts and glacis had been wrenched out, as if by a giant's
fist, and rubble lay strewn all down the slope, choking the moat
before them.

'Let peace reign!' cried a gentleman in the crowd importantly.

Wéry, standing a little aside among the engineers, did
not applaud. He had not taken his eyes off the Frenchman.

Since he's here, Bergesrode had said, you had better watch him. Make
sure you know who he talks to, and what he says . . .

That, and a hard look, was all Bergesrode had said about the
arrival of Major Lanard in the city. They did not seem to have
guessed yet how the Frenchman had obtained his papers. And for
the time being the palace was not going to risk uproar by revoking
them. Perhaps the Prince had even decided that it suited him
that the Inquiry should have such a witness.

Nevertheless, Bergesrode had sent him out here to be the
palace eavesdropper. He would not be the only one. At this
instant there were probably a dozen other ears of the Prince or
Chapter or city police in the crowd, straining to hear what was
said.

Wéry also had the impression that an intelligence office that
produced no intelligence was suddenly worth rather less of
Bergesrode's time than it had been. But at least they had not taken
Asmus from him yet.

Lanard had not applauded or commented. His eyes ran over
the damage to the wall, and over the two great bastions on either
side of it. Any storming party that tried to gain the breach would
still be subject to fire from left and right.

'Yes,' he said at length. 'A small hole.'

'We are constrained by the closeness of the houses on the
inside of the wall, sir,' said the engineer quickly. 'But the same
operation will be repeated on the citadel, as your authorities have
requested.'

'On the east wall, no doubt?'

The east wall of the citadel faced over the town, and was the
least exposed to any assault.

'It is the best for the purpose, sir.'

'Ah.'

The crowd was beginning to drift back to its carriages.

'You are coming to the levee, Major Lanard?' said a woman,
who had ventured out into the fields in fine yellow silks. 'I insist
that you should.'

'It is needless, madame,' said the Frenchman, with a bow and
a smile. 'For my hostess has already insisted.'

'Wonderful! And how charming you are! I declare you are not
at all what I expected.'

'From the cartoons I have seen,' sighed Lanard,'I imagine you
expected a monkey with bloody hands and the cap of liberty on
its head. But there has been some poverty of understanding
between my country and its neighbours of late.'

'It is all the fault of the Paris mob and the excesses they
committed,' said a gentleman on the other side of him. 'Are you
from Paris, Major?'

'I am from Poitou. But I have studied in Paris, and know its
shortcomings.'

'Yes, we must take issue with you sir, for the sake of your
countrymen. Come, is it not madness that descended upon
your people? Such behaviour as no civilized nation should
understand, or permit!'

'Indeed, sir,' said the Frenchman. 'Would that our folk were so
contented as the Germans, who to please their lords would allow
themselves to be sold to an English king to make battalions for
his wars.'

'Aha!
Touch
é
,
Baron, is it not?' cried the woman.

'Indeed, indeed. But you must beware of speaking too broadly,
Major. That outrage was committed only in Hesse and Ansbach.
Not all princes comport themselves so towards their subjects.'

'I am well aware of it. Yours, I believe, is in some ways
considered a model. And yet to be a prince at all – is that not to
steal something from his subjects? Do not misunderstand me – I
am not here to preach the Rights of Man. But these are ideas that
long precede our revolution . . .'

'Of course, of course! You are speaking of Rousseau.'

'If you like . . .'

Wéry knew this was exactly the sort of conversation that
Bergesrode would want him to report. But the crowd around the
Frenchman was thick, and he had no wish to waste his energy
burrowing through it. He had no stomach for this mission in any
case. So far, he agreed with everything the speakers had said.

And now they were reaching the carriages, and the conversation
was broken off, with both men promising that they would
resume it as soon as they could. Wéry supposed that he should
find out in which carriage the Frenchman rode, and who shared
it with him, and so on. It was all useless information, yet if he
reported less than other spies he would fall further from
Bergesrode's favour.

But it was a bright day, perhaps the very last of the year, and
what he most wanted to do was walk slowly back to his quarters
and think of things that had nothing to do with intrigue,
espionage, or the old, ugly memories that the sight of the
Frenchman brought up within him.

A hand tapped him on the shoulder. He looked round into the
face of Franz von Adelsheim.

A message? At last? But . . .

'M-mother wants you to come in our coach,' said the young
man, whose gaze had already wandered away into the crowd.

Wéry did not know what to say. 'This is most unexpected.'

'The Frenchman wants it. He wants to meet you.'

The Frenchman? Yes, of course he was staying at the
Adelsheim house.

'I think Mother was surprised, too,' said Franz, with the alarming
clarity of the mentally affected.

'I . . . am most grateful, but . . .' He did not want to face the
Frenchman. He did not want to face Lady Adelsheim, either.

'They're waiting for us,' said Franz and shambled off into the
crowd.

And of course he could not refuse – not without giving
mortal offence. And perhaps – just perhaps – this invitation had
been arranged by Maria, so that she might pass something to
him? (But under the nose of her mother and Lanard? Surely not!)

He hurried to keep up with Franz. 'Is your sister well?' he
asked, falling in beside the young man. 'I have not seen her for
some weeks.'

'Oh yes, I think so.'

Useless! Where was she?

But there was no more time to speak. They were at the door
of the Adelsheim carriage – a closed coach, drawn by four black
horses. Lady Adelsheim was inside, looking down at them. Two
other women were already in the gig. One he recognized as Lady
Machting, and the other he supposed must be the Machtings'
daughter. There was no sign of Maria, or Madame Poppenstahl.

'My Lady,' he said.

'Major,' said Lady Adelsheim, coldly.

'I – er – trust your daughter is well?'

'She is quite well, sir,' said Lady Adelsheim. And she looked
pointedly in another direction.

He climbed up to join them. Franz followed. The Frenchman
was seated in the far corner. And Wéry found he must sit opposite
him. The pale, amused eyes watched him as he struggled into his
place. Wéry noted, too, that Lanard's uniform was that of a
general's aide-de-camp. The man had risen since the day he stood
with his infantrymen at Hersheim. No doubt it was the
correspondence with the peace party in Erzberg that had drawn
him to his masters' attention.

'Ah, the Brabançon!' said Lanard, who did not wait for an
introduction. 'I have heard much of you.'

'I dare not think what you have heard, sir.'

'Many things. You are quite a swimmer, I understand. Now tell
me, because we are all friends these days – how did you manage
to pass out of a city under siege?'

How?

Wéry shifted, and tried to find a comfortable position. 'They
say the Rhine is good to its children,' he said. 'Perhaps it adopted
me.'

'Oh come! I am a soldier too. The river must have been the
least of it. What of the walls, the patrols, the boats? A remarkable
feat, and very subtle.'

Wéry smiled tightly.

'You will have had help, of course,' said Lanard. 'Perhaps you
are reluctant to speak of that. But come – the city of Mainz is in
Imperial hands again. No harm can come to your friends now.
Nor do I wish them any. Is it not proper that men who have
opposed one another in war may share their reminiscences in
peace? Or are the Erzberg officers – I have had some experience
of this, of course – still reluctant to believe in peace when it
comes?'

Wéry smiled again and did not answer. The coachman called
to the horses. Slowly the carriage began to move.

Lanard shrugged. 'Perhaps your friends are not as safe from us
as I suppose them to be. Very well, we will speak no more of it.'

The carriage bumped and jolted on its way. It was one of a
long train of vehicles snaking from the site of the breach around
to the city gates. Every now and then it halted, waiting for the
carriage in front to pick up speed again. The skirts of the three
women took up four-fifths of the interior space. Lanard and
Wéry were crammed into their corners with their knees against
the doors. Even in this uncomfortable position the Frenchman
seemed serene.

'All the city holds its breath for your testimony, Monsieur,' said
Lady Machting.

'Then they may soon exercise their lungs again, my Lady. I
understand the Commission desires to see me this afternoon, and
also that Count Balcke has won the right to attend. I must say I
did not think that I would meet that man again.'

'Indeed! Are you not nervous? You must stand no nonsense
from the Inquisitor, sir. I have known Steinau for many years. He
has his opinions but he is far from the worst of his set.'

'I believe the Canon Steinau is concerned to establish whether
I am Christian. But I suspect it will be in my capacities to
persuade him.'

'And will you also attend the Mass at the cathedral tomorrow,
Monsieur?' asked the Machting girl.

'Naturally, Lady Elisabeth.' said Lanard. 'If you are to be of the
party.'

'The Bach is a master of his profession, and must be heard.'

'Forgive me – the Bach?'

'The chapel-master. A relative of the great Bach.'

'Every prince must have his Bach,' said the Lady Adelsheim, in
tones of mild scorn. 'As every cathedral must have its organ.'

'I fear I am no judge of music,' said Lanard. 'But I shall be
delighted to see the cathedral. I have heard that the roof is a
wonder.'

'The painted ceiling? Oh indeed! Do you admire such things?'

'Very much. It is curious in me, I know. But for me it is the
highest of moments, to walk through a doorway and find, instead
of a dull ceiling looming over my head – behold! One stands
beneath a heaven.'

'Then,' said Lady Machting firmly, 'we must arrange a private
audience for you with His Highness. For his office, it is said, is
from floor to ceiling a depiction of Heaven, and widely admired!'

'So I have heard. But my Lady, supposing that you, with your
infinite resource, were to obtain such an audience for me, it
would be a sore trial indeed. For I doubt that it would be thought
proper that my eyes should rove wall and ceiling while His
Highness seeks to address me. Fortunate are those who have had
the chance. Have you seen it, Major?'