The Lightstep (31 page)

Ludwig Jürich rode with them in the coach, just as he had
done on their journey from Mainz the month before.
And just as before, he got out and approached the French pickets
outside the city on horseback. But once they were through
to the gate he stopped and took off his hat.

'I should dearly like to pass one more evening with you,
cousin,' he said to Anna. 'But I have decided that it would be
better if I returned at once. I do not know what may happen in
the space of the next day.'

'Oh you must,' said Anna at the coach window. 'I am sure
Emilia is already anxious for you. And we will shift very well for
ourselves tonight.'

'Sir,' said Maria, over Anna's shoulder. 'I shall always carry good
memories of your house, and of the people in it.'

He bowed. 'And I wish you good speed to Erzberg. Only be
sure that you start early in the morning.'

He placed his hat once more upon his head, turned his horse
and rode away down the track, followed by his groom. Maria
watched him go, riding with his shoulders straight and his head
high, back towards the ragged pickets of his oppressors.

When he was set down upon the judgement seat, his wife sent unto
him, saying Have thou nothing to do with that innocent man . . .

That line had followed her into her dreams.

'I was angry with him yesterday,' she said. 'When he told us we
must go, I was angry. But he carries so much. Both he and Emilia
do. Now I feel ashamed.'

'My dear, I knew there was something.'

There was indeed something. There was the package,
concealed deep in her trunk, which Ludwig had been so anxious
to prevent from leaving his house. And it had come, in the end,
from one of his own servants. Strange how one always overlooked
the servants! Even one who had a perfect excuse to travel up and
down the Rhineland, hunting for impossible supplies for the
madman in the long room. So she had defeated Cousin Ludwig
after all. She was sad about that. It was inevitable, but it was also
sad, like the theft of the golden apples from the gardens of the
Hesperides.

Outside the guards had finished looking at their papers, and
the coach lurched forward, on into the fortified city.

Having cheated her host in the one thing that mattered, Maria
was anxious to keep faith with him in every other way possible.
So she reminded Anna, before they went to bed, that they were
to leave Mainz early the next day, and she gave orders to the
servants and the grooms that the coach was to be ready to move
at a good hour. And so they were up and watching things being
loaded back into the coach before it was fully light. The streets
were quiet. The other people in the inn were mostly still abed. It
was cold, and Maria was glad when the landlord came out to tell
them that their breakfast was set.

There was broth, very hot. Maria wanted something warm
inside her, but she did not want to burn her tongue. She blew on
it, and tried it. Then she waited a little longer, and tried it
again. It was still too hot.

She was dipping her spoon into it hopefully for the third time
when a kitchen boy came banging in through the front door. His
face was pale and his eyes were staring.

'The Austrians!' he cried. 'Austrians're leaving!'

The landlord stopped in the act of putting more bread on the
table. 'What? What's that?'

'Paul saw'm in the main street,' the boy cried. 'They're up and
away, carts and all!'

The landlord swore. Other faces appeared in doorways, calling
out to know what was happening. Half a dozen alarmed
conversations broke out around the room.

Maria put down her spoon. 'If the garrison is leaving,' she said
slowly to Anna. 'Then I think we should go too.'

Anna blinked at her.

'I'm sure it is nothing, dear,' she said. 'People say and hear all
sorts of things, and then they become excited.'

Maria stared at Anna, who was looking firmly at her bowl.
Somehow she had managed to begin eating it. The landlord had
abandoned the table and run out into the street.

'Anna, I think we should go now.'

'After breakfast, of course. But it is silly to leave what the poor
man has set for us.'

Eat your breakfast, dear, and don't fuss.

'Anna!' Maria thumped the table. 'Ludwig told us the French
were moving their soldiers. He thought something was about to
happen. He wanted to make sure we were away before it did. We
must hurry!'

'You are too directive,' said Anna crossly. 'I do not wish to leave
without breakfast, and I certainly think you should not. It is not
good for you.'

Shouts broke out in the street, urgent and alarmed. They
brought Maria jumping to her feet.

'Oh, Mother of God! You cannot make me eat, you silly
woman!'

The servants were staring at her, arrested in their meal by the
sudden excitement. 'Ehrlich,' she called to the groom at the head.
'Ehrlich, we are going
now.
You can pocket the bread, but we
must be on our way.'

The servants exploded from their table. A bench went over.
Maria caught Ehrlich, who had the purse, and made him go and
put money on the landlord's table for when he should return. The
others hurried out to swarm around the coach and bring out the
horses.

'Oh, very
well!'
exclaimed Anna and began to gather herself.

Still it seemed a long time, an agonizingly long time, before
the team was hitched and the women were seated aboard the
coach. It was fully light. The streets, which had been quiet before,
were busy with people, not at their daily business of stalls and
workshops, but hurrying along, crowding down towards the main
street in search of whatever was happening. The coach followed
along in the direction of the crowd, slowing to a crawl when the
press of bodies grew too thick under the close, over-hanging
house fronts.

'The French are at the west gate!' she heard someone exclaim.

'The French! The west gate!'

In the main street the press was thicker still. The carriage
stopped. Leaning from her window, Maria saw a group of
cavalrymen, part of the retreating garrison, forcing their way
through the crowd a hundred yards ahead. People were calling to
them, booing them, snatching at stirrups and begging them
to remain. She saw one of the horsemen raise a hand. They had
all raised their hands, and their hands were holding drawn swords.
Under the threat of the steel the crowd gave back a little, and the
horsemen moved on.

A cart had drawn up behind them. There was a family in it.
The man at the head bellowed for room. Another wagon
appeared further back. Other people were trying to leave the city.
But they were all stuck, all stuck!

'Ehrlich,' she called, leaning as far out as she could and peering
up to the driver's perch. She could see only his boot and the
top of his tricorn hat. 'Ehrlich, for Heaven's sake move on.'

'I can't, my Lady.'

'You may have to use the whip,' she said.

She heard him mutter doubtfully. She wondered if she should
order him to do it. She did not want to. Whip people because
they were afraid? And what would the crowd do to them if he
did?

But what would the French do to them if they could not get
away? They would be robbed! Or worse!

And they might turn out all the trunks. She remembered the
pleading letters on the table of the green judge – shoes, hats,
neckties – all stolen. They stole everything.

They would find the package. They would open it.

She thrust her head and shoulders out of the carriage window.

'Ehrlich . . .' she began.

'Friends!' cried a voice in the crowd. 'Hear me. If the French
enter the city, we must all keep calm . . .'

It was a stout, sober-suited man who was standing on a water
butt to make himself heard. Perhaps he was a guild-master. He
must have been running, for he was red in the face and sweating
on that winter day. The crowd turned their faces to him.

'They've abandoned us!' yelled someone. 'They've handed us
over – like goods!'

'As God wills,' said the man. 'Remember that our duty is to
God, our Elector, and to our families. We can serve none of them
if we lose our reason . . .'

'Sir!' cried Maria. 'Please – could you make them move?'

The man looked her way, and frowned.

'Sir,' begged Maria. 'For pity's sake, we shall be trapped here!'

'Trapped right enough,' said someone.

'Come now,' said the man, still frowning. 'Where is our
courtesy, in Mainz? Move away from the horses, there, I beg you,
friends. Let them pass.'

'Why them and not us?'

'Let them pass, friend, and then come reason with me,' said the
man. 'Thank you, there. Now, friends, we do not know what lies
ahead for us . . .'

The horses were moving. Thank God, they were moving! And
they kept moving. She heard Ehrlich calling for room, again and
again. She heard the whip crack threateningly. Then the coach
stopped, and her heart stopped with it. But it started again. A few
minutes later it stopped once more. They had reached the bridge.

There was a great throng of wagons and carts at the bridge
already, crowded around and waiting to cross. Many people
seemed to have snatched up whatever belongings they could lift
and climbed into their vehicles in whatever clothes they had on.
Maria saw more than one fugitive still in their nightshirts, with
blankets thrown around them. Ehrlich roared and roared for
room, forcing their way to the bridge with all the habits of
privilege. People yelled at them, and cursed, and Maria, ashamed
and fearful, shrank back inside. She heard the whip again, and a
horse whinny, and more cursing. Then they were moving once
more, and the window showed her the grey Rhine flowing
steadily north, deaf to the human terrors on its banks.

No one checked papers at the far end of the bridge. A few
Rhinelander soldiers stood about, looking helpless as the ragged
column of townsfolk debouched into the fortifications and out
onto the east bank. An infantry battalion – part of the Imperial
garrison – was drawn up by the roadside there. Officers were
moving down the ranks, inspecting packs and boots and the
contents of wagons. The men looked idly at the people who
poured past them, with faces that said it was no concern of theirs.

Maria sat back once more, with a horrid, guilty, empty sense
of relief inside her.

'Anna,' she murmured. 'I'm sorry. I was unkind to you in the
inn. It was very wrong of me.'

'Oh,' said Anna dismissively. 'You said nothing that I do not
know well enough. Look, I have saved some of the bread for you.
Will you have it now?'

It had been something to do with the Treaty. Clauses had been
signed in secret between the Austrian representatives and the
French General Bonaparte, handing over Mainz, the city of
the first-ranking Elector of the Empire. The innkeeper in
Frankfurt, an Imperial city, declared that this must certainly have
been done without the knowledge of the Emperor himself. And
anyway, when the news reached the Congress at Rastatt, the
ambassadors of the princes would surely protest at once.

'No doubt,' said Maria. 'I am sure they will protest most
vigorously. In the meanwhile, I wonder what else has been given
away.'

'Oh do not fret, my darling,' said Anna. 'Remember, it is just
two days now, and we shall be home.'

'Yes,' said Maria dully. 'I hope so.'

They slept late after the demands of the day before, and
gathered themselves at about mid-morning for the journey up
the north bank of the Vater. Another weary, jolting coach journey,
thought Maria, with nothing to do but watch the landscape pass.
She had had enough of the steep hills and woods and of the
sound of the coach-wheels grinding over stones and into mud. She
very much wanted to be home. She wanted to see Father again, and
embrace him, and read to him. And once she had done that, she
thought she might live her life between Erzberg and Adelsheim, and
never travel again. Oh, that it would soon be over!

They changed horses at Hanau, paid a toll and ate a meal; then
they pressed on into the grey afternoon. Steep, wood-covered
slopes rose to their left. To their right the Vater rolled brownly on
down towards Frankfurt and the Rhine, and on the far bank were
more woods and hills, and the occasional hamlet, clustered at the
waterside. There was little traffic on the river. The road was bad,
much damaged by winter rain. The going was slow.

After another hour or so they halted to rest the horses. Maria,
Anna and their two maids climbed out. They were in another
little village: a collection of huts clustered around a small church,
wedged between the forested slopes and the river. It was good to
be able to walk and stand in the air after all that long swaying
inside the coach. Two ragged, dirty children ran up and started to
beg. She ignored them.

'Are we in Erzberg yet?' she asked Ehrlich.

'Still in Hanau, my Lady. But we should see the border-stone
very soon.'

'Good.' She walked a little by herself while Ehrlich began to
unhitch the team and the maids shooed the urchins away. The
road they had travelled swept back along the wooded banks,
curving to the left with the line of the river. They had passed no
one on it for the last hour.

But there were people on it now.

In the grey light she had to screw her eyes up to be sure. But
yes, there was movement on the road, perhaps half a mile away.
Horses and their riders, she thought. There were maybe a dozen
of them. There were no carts. They must be revenue officers, or
soldiers.

A dozen of them. Maria did not think that the tiny county of
Hanau could have even that many horsemen altogether.
Who could they be, then? The colours of their uniforms
were lost under the muddy greys and browns of their
greatcoats.