The Lightstep (14 page)

Think, cursed Wéry to himself.
Think!
None of the other
officers could debate with this man. He was too quick, too clever.
And none of them, not even Balcke, was yet ready to commit
themselves to the Prince's logic – not for a fight against odds of
twenty or forty to one. But Wéry had lived his life by the same
logic. He knew what the Prince had been saying, and what he
was looking for from the rest of them. If only he could find the
words to say it himself!

And yet, as he stared out over the city, all the arguments
seemed weak. Gianovi had stated them and dismissed them. And
the things Wéry had said already sounded foolish now – not
because they were foolish, but because of the way he had said
them. He looked at the scaffolding on the spires, and his mind,
unbidden, conjured a vision of the burnt towers of the cathedral
at Mainz. In his confusion he could not help wondering whether
there was scaffolding around those too, at that moment. And if so,
what did it mean?

'In any event, this is idle talk,' said Gianovi. 'There has been a
development, Your Highness.'

'Indeed?'

'The Canon Rother-Konisrat has sought an audience with
you, which he hopes will be granted as soon as the Privy Council
has finished. It seems that he has heard some story from his cousin
Lady Adelsheim that Your Highness's officers declined a truce,
immediately before the action at Hersheim.'

'Really! Which officers?'

'The officer named in the story is present, Your Highness,'
Gianovi said, inclining his head towards Balcke.

The Prince looked down at the little First Minister, and his
face was set like stone.

'I do not doubt, of course, that there has been some exaggeration
in the telling . . .' said Gianovi, with an apologetic smile.

'Dear, dear,' murmured the Prince. 'Has there been, my dear
Colossus?'

Balcke's face was red. 'There's not a word of truth in it, Your
Highness,' he said.

'. . . Nevertheless,' continued Gianovi smoothly, 'I believe we
can all appreciate that, given the current mood of the city, this
rumour would be enough to make any call to arms most
inadvisable.'

'You believe the guilds would not respond.'

'I believe they would respond with alacrity, Highness. I believe
they would be clamouring at the doors of the armouries. But I
fear that, when the doors opened, the direction in which they
employed their arms might be less than helpful to us.'

There was a short, thick silence. Balcke stood like an oak in
the middle of the group, and no one met his eye.

After a moment, the First Minister continued: 'In the circumstances,
I have felt it necessary to indicate to Canon Rother that
Your Highness may consent to the War Commission conducting
an inquiry into events at Hersheim.'

'I see,' said the Prince. 'And shall I?'

'I suspect the – ah –
will
of the Chapter, and of the estates and
city, may brook nothing else, Your Highness.'

1 see.

'And in the meantime I am sure the army will consider itself
employed in obliging the French in the matter of the city wall.'

The First Minister ran his eye once more down the line of
uniformed men. No one answered him. He turned away.

'Your Highness.'

'Indeed, indeed. We are interrupting these gentlemen in their
work. And the Privy Council must be waiting. Let us return to
our duties.'

The officers stood to attention. The Prince smiled, and turned
to pace down the bastion wall with the First Minister at his side
and Bergesrode shadowing them, a few paces behind. Gianovi
was speaking to his master, but the wind bore his words away.
There was no way of telling whether the Prince was nodding to
some pleasantry, or to some earnest warning about the dangerous
men they were leaving.

'Blow up the walls!' exclaimed someone. 'Is he in the pay of
the French, that man?'

'No city, no nice nest for Gianovi,' grumbled someone else. 'I
never could stand foreigners in the service.'

'Hum!' exclaimed the hussar colonel angrily.

'Dammit, Altmantz. I didn't mean your man here. Good stuff
that, Wéry. Well done.'

Silence fell again as the officers contemplated their defeat. The
Prince and his First Minister were diminishing along the bastion
wall. Still the big man was listening, the small one speaking,
waving his hands like a conjurer.

'That about Hersheim,' ventured Knuds. 'Damned awkward, at
this time.'

'Propaganda,' said Altmantz. 'They're sowing dissension.'

'I've a bottle of brandy on my table, if you fellows wish,' said
Knuds.

'First sensible thing anyone's said today . . .'

'Not for me,' said Balcke abruptly, and stalked off.

There were embarrassed looks among the colonels. Altmantz
cleared his throat.

'Coming, Wéry?' he asked. 'Something to cool that hot head
of yours?'

Wéry shook his head. He was speechless with anger. The
uppermost thought in his mind was: how was it
possible?

'Hey, Wéry? Are you dreaming, man?'

'I – I don't know if I will be able to, sir,' said Wéry.

Bergesrode had dropped back behind the Prince and the First
Minister. He was looking over his shoulder, jerking his head.

'What's the matter?'

'I think I am about to be dismissed.'

Dismissed?
He would have dismissed himself, for sure.

He would have torn up his commission in his own face,
yelling,
'Idiot! Fool! Half-baked ideas!'

'You had the chance, and ruined it!'

He had had the chance – exactly the chance he had prayed for.
Now that it had vanished, he could see it so clearly: the chance
to step up from the endless, meaningless drudgery of spy work to
strike a real blow! A city armed and defiant! A fight to the bitter
end! The Prince had been willing to listen. He had even given
Wéry the cue. And then they had all been out-talked by the
quick-tongued First Minister. The army had been made to look
foolish. Balcke was declared a villain, fit only to be investigated.
And what Wéry hated most of all was that his own wits had been
slower than Gianovi's.

Politics!

He understood, dimly, that the other officers were not displeased
with him. Balcke had even backed him. Altmantz, who
normally averted his eyes at the sight of Wéry, was now almost
friendly. But that was beside the point. What they thought did not
matter. They did not see things as clearly as he. Bergesrode did.
Bergesrode, who had prepared the Prince for this meeting and
had made sure Wéry was included, would understand that he had
failed. Now Bergesrode was waiting for him.

The face of the priest was like 'weathered sandstone, hard and
lined and pitted. His thick, dark brows sloped naturally, so that he
was forever frowning. The smudges beneath his eyes matched his
brows so perfectly that they might have been reflections in some
pool. All four dark marks slanted towards the bridge of his nose,
as if they were the remains of a diagonal, ashen cross that dour
saints had traced there at his birth, to show that the child was one
of their own. His hair was black and his priest's robe was black,
and he never wore anything else.

'Well?' said Bergesrode.

'I said what I believed to be true,' Wéry replied stiffly. 'I still
believe it.'

'I don't mean that. Your report about Hoche. Can he rely on
it?'

'Oh.' Wéry gathered his thoughts. 'Yes, I believe so.'

'I need more than that.'

When Wéry hesitated, he said,'Come on. We can talk as we
walk. But I cannot be left behind.' He turned to follow his master.

'You want to know the sources?' Wéry said, hurrying to keep
up.

'Tell me no more than you need to. But yes.'

'There is a merchant in Kassel, who has contracts to supply
one of the French divisions. There are two peddlers. There is also
a money-lender whose clients include French officers.'

'A Jew?' Bergesrode looked at him sharply.

'Does it matter? Their officers visit him, eat with him, get
drunk and talk.'

(With Bergesrode, as with Balcke. Keep to the truth, short and
direct. Loathe his every instinct, churchman and aristocrat, but
loathe in silence. On the one point that mattered most, they were
agreed.)

Bergesrode walked a pace or two, brooding. At length he
shrugged. 'The end justifies the means. So this is chit-chat among
the officers at Wetzlar. Is that all?'

'I have confirmation from the Rhine.'

'Who do you have beyond the Rhine?'

'I will not say.' And as Bergesrode opened his mouth, Wéry cut
in again. 'He is not doing it for the Prince's gold. I do not owe
you his rank or name.'

'I have to trust what you say he says,' snapped Bergesrode. 'I
have to advise the Prince to trust it too.'

'He can be trusted. The difficulty is bringing his news back to
Erzberg.'

'And how do you do that?'

'So far, by crossing the Rhine myself.'

'You could have been arrested!'

'I have not been.'

'Yet. But if you carry on with that we will lose you. You must
not go into French-held territory again. You must think of a
better way.'

'I'm trying to!'

And that was weakness, that outburst: weakness shown to
Bergesrode, who knew no weakness. Wéry was still struggling
to adjust, still wondering why there had been no word about
dismissal or even reprimand. Perhaps the question of dismissal had
never crossed Bergesrode's mind. A chance had been lost – what
of it? Continue, with the tools that you have. Discard them only
if you think you can find better ones.

In some ways Wéry wished he could be more like Bergesrode
himself.

But what a chance it had been!

So, no dismissal. Or not yet. Perhaps the Prince, strolling ahead
of them with Gianovi at his side, would remember him at some
point in the weeks ahead and pronounce his sentence then. In the
meantime, he must continue.

'Very good,' said Bergesrode. 'But from now on you must
double your efforts. You must watch Hoche like a hawk. We need
his correspondence, his plans, his preparations – anything you can
learn about his intentions. If he is going to move against us, we
need as much warning as you can give.'

'I understand,' said Wéry, sorting in his mind the possible from
the impossible among Bergesrode's demands.

(Hoche's plans? As well whistle for the moon.)

(Correspondence? Well, if there were a corrupt clerk, and the
money to bribe him with. But could he find either?)

No. It would be counting tents, watching wagon-loads, listening
to what Bergesrode called the chit-chat, sorting fact from
rumour. No army, not even the French, could move anywhere
without some sign of stirring.

They turned the corner of the palace. The Prince and First
Minister were some fifty paces ahead of them, approaching the
gate to the inner courtyard. A coach, rolling out of the archway,
stopped at the sight of the pair. Its occupant, a long, languid
young man in a yellow coat, climbed out of the carriage to accost
them.

'D'Erles,' murmured Bergesrode. 'Our
causus belli!

'Do you need to join them?'

Bergesrode shook his head. 'Let the First Minister catch it,
whatever it is. It will serve him for forcing himself in on a meeting
to which he was not invited. In any case, with d'Erles it will
be about his lodgings or his allowance. It won't be high policy.'

'I'm surprised he doesn't ask the Countess.'

Bergesrode glanced at him coldly. Wéry shrugged. No one
would admit to him that the Countess Wilhelmina Pancak-Schonberg
– the huge and brainless noblewoman who
dominated the Prince's court – was the Prince's mistress. But
what other explanation for her influence could there be? And she
doted on the handsome d'Erles. It galled Wéry to think that his
final confrontation with Paris might come about not for the sake
of Freedom, or Truth, but because an eccentric female aristocrat
was besotted with a feckless, self-centred, exploitative young man
whom France had every right to hate.

Bergesrode watched the group ahead of them. After a moment
he said, 'There will be agitators.'

'Agitators?'

'Republican agents. Illuminati. Sent to foment discontent
here.'

Wéry shrugged again. 'If I hear anything, of course I will
report it. But they won't be in Wetzlar. They'll be in the city.'

'Then
look
in the city.'

'Isn't that for the city police . . .'

'Yes, and for you, too. This is important. The Illuminati are the
danger. They are the ones who controlled the Revolution. Abbé
Barruel had proved it. Never forget that.'

Wéry shook his head. He had helped to organize a revolution
himself, in Brabant. He had walked in Paris in the heady days of
'92, and early '93 when Louis XVI had gone to the guillotine.
Not once had he come across any sign that anyone professing to
be an Illuminatus (or freemason or Martinist or Rosicrucian, for
that matter) had secretly steered events to their conclusion. Not
once had he even thought of them, until he had come to take
service in the Empire where the vast and fearful Catholic Church
still held sway, peering at the signs of its destruction and seeking
its enemies in the shadows.

Control the Revolution? No one had controlled it at all. That
was how it had become what it had become.

And in any case, how was he, a foreigner and barely a gentleman,
to penetrate the political salons and lodges of Erzberg and
learn their secrets?

'The French messengers that came yesterday went into the
city too,' said Bergesrode. 'We know one of them called at a house
in the Saint Emil quarter. That's where this story about Balcke
will have come from. And this morning a crowd pelted the coach
of one of the d'Erles party . . .'

'Do you think it's true, that story about Balcke?'

'Weren't you there?'

'Not at the action itself.'

'That may be very lucky for you. If it is true, Balcke is finished
and so is anyone who was with him. We will find out. At the same
time we will stop this leakage into and out of the city. It is
ridiculous that French messengers can come and go where they
please before we are aware of it. From now on, passports will only
be issued or countersigned by the Prince's office or by the First
Minister. The Prince has signed a decree to that effect. Stop a
moment.'

They stood under the shadow of the Celesterburg arch, looking
in to the courtyard. Half-way across the cobbles the Prince
was making his way slowly towards the palace steps, now
surrounded by a small crowd of notables vying for his attention.

'Best we do not let too many people see us talking,' murmured
Bergesrode. 'He doesn't want it known that we are consulting the
army at present.'

'I need passports for myself and my couriers. How am I to get
them if . . .'

'Come and see me when you need them.'

'Your antechamber is too damned crowded . . .'

'That is blasphemy, Wéry'

'. . . Whenever I go up there, I find half of Erzberg waiting for
you or the Prince. And they can hear every word we say!'

'You don't come early enough. Come at dawn. I'll give you a
pass for the side door.' He caught Wéry's look. 'Oh we'll be there.
Don't worry. But come ready to talk about the Illuminati. Also, I
want to know more about these ideas of yours.'

'Which ones?'

'What you said out there, on the bastion. He liked that.'

Wéry stared at him. 'You think he would do it?'

'That's as may be.'

'Didn't he decide it was impossible?'

'The only thing he will have decided this morning will be that
he has even fewer competent officers than he thought he had.
And the only thing we can be sure of is that
if the
French come,
it will not be that fool Knuds who will be commanding in the
citadel! Nothing else is certain. That's why your work matters.
And your ideas.'

With a nod of dismissal, he set out across the palace courtyard.
His black robes blew around him as he hurried in the wake of his
master.