The Lightstep (32 page)

Her mind leapt to the picket on the road outside Mainz.

'Ehrlich!' she called.

'My Lady?'

'How far is it to the border?'

'Not far, my Lady.'

'There are soldiers on the road behind us. I want to cross the
border immediately.'

Mother Mary! And he already had one of the beasts out of its
traces!

'Hitch it up again, and hurry,' she said.

He stared for a moment over his shoulder at the road. Then he
muttered something, and went to back the horse into its place
once more.

'Into the coach!' Maria snapped at her maids.

'Who do you think they are?' asked Anna.

'I do not know who they are,' said Maria. 'And really I do not
think we should wait to find out.'

They bundled into the coach. In a moment they heard Ehrlich
climbing back into his place. The whip cracked. They were
moving.

Maria looked at the faces of the other women. They were
drawn, tight-lipped. The two maids were holding hands. They
were afraid. Maria knew she was afraid too. She had been afraid
before all of them. It was carrying that packet from the
Rhineland. It meant she could never leave fear behind her – not
in Mainz, not in Frankfurt, not here. And she would flee from the
sight of strange horsemen, rather than wait to discover if they
were indeed the portly customs-men of Hanau that all reason
said they should be.

They were rattling up an easy slope above the river. How far
was it to the border? They should have asked in the village.
Maybe the horsemen would stop at the village. Maybe they
would not come on. If only they could pass the frontier stone,
they should be safe. How far was it?

The carriage paused at the top of the rise. Through her
window Maria could see the river foaming gently at the foot of
a great bluff. The road did not go that way. It must circle the bluff
inland. Where were they? Why had they stopped? Ehrlich must
be looking back down to the village, to see if they were followed.

Ehrlich cried out, and the whip cracked. The coach lurched
forward, level for a space and then downhill. The women were
thrown against one another. The window showed the forest
beginning to rush backwards. Ehrlich cried again, and the horses
broke into a canter. They were going at speed – at speed on this
bad, stony slope. What if they were overset? The faces of the maids
opposite Maria were white, and one of them was moaning. On,
on they clattered and lurched down the slope. The wheels hit
something with a bang that lifted Maria for a moment from her
seat. Someone shrieked. They were all clinging to each other,
because there was nothing else to cling on to. The ground
levelled, but still Ehrlich was whipping and calling to the horses,
and they trundled and swayed fast, fast along the forest road.
Where was the border stone? Where in heaven was the border?
Surely the horsemen would not follow them over it? Trampling
on tiny Hanau's ground was one thing. Crossing unbidden into
Erzberg was another. Erzberg had dragoons, patrolling. This road
of all roads would be watched, surely. Oh, please Heaven . . .

Now she heard the hooves – the heavy, multiple drumming of
hooves close behind them. Men were calling. She could not hear
the words. Something cracked loudly. Mother of God – was it a
gunshot? But Ehrlich was still in his seat, still whipping and calling
to the horses, and the carriage bounced and swayed as if it
were a dice-box in a giant's fist.

Where was the stone? Had they missed it? Surely they were
past it by now!

A great, brown shape appeared outside Maria's window. It was
a horse, cantering hard along the verge of the road. The rider had
his reins in one hand and a pistol in the other. She saw him
actually duck under the branches of a tree that would have swept
him from his saddle. For a moment the horse hung level with
them, and then it seemed to leap ahead as the horseman saw his
opening and set the beast at it. Even in that moment Maria was
awed by the power and daring of it. She heard the man calling to
Ehrlich,
'Arrêtez! Arrêtez ou je tire!'
And the coach slowed.

One of the maids was sobbing. Ehrlich was still calling to the
horses, but his voice had changed. The relentless clatter of
the wheels eased. They were down to a walk. Other horsemen
were crowding up around them. For a moment it was a relief, a
relief to have surrendered, and to be spared that headlong drive.
Then the coach stopped. The door opened. A face swathed in
moustaches and long bristles, topped by a battered tricorn hat,
peered in.

'Out, everyone,' the man said in French. 'Onto the road.'

Slowly, stiffly they climbed out. The soldiers had brought the
coach to a halt in a little forest clearing, so small that the coach
and the horse-party crowded it. They gestured to the women to
stand a little apart. Maria saw them take the pistols from Ehrlich
and the other groom, and the purse from Ehrlich's belt. They
made the grooms sit down. Then one of them walked behind
Ehrlich and kicked him in the kidneys, viciously, so that he rolled
over and lay groaning. The soldiers laughed, and spoke to one
another.

They were French. She heard their voices, and saw the blue
uniforms peeping from under coats and cloaks. She saw them lifting
trunks and bundles down from the roof of the coach. Knives
gleamed and straps were cut. The lids were forced open.

They were French. What were they doing here?

'Maria, dear,' whispered Anna. 'Stand behind me.'

One of the soldiers had looked her way and grinned. She
shrank back. She could not help it. What would they do? Beside
her one of the maids had begun to moan again. The stupid,
animal sound sawed at her nerves. She wanted to shriek at the
girl.

'Keep behind me, dear,' said Anna stiffly.

Anna had put herself between the rest of them and the
soldiers. Her head was up. Her right hand, low by the skirts of her
dress, was curled into an angled fist, as if she was holding an
imaginary stick or riding-crop. Maria stared at it. She saw, in that
moment, how very white the fingers were at the knuckles.

Oh Father, she thought. If you could see me now . . . Oh
Father, I don't think I'm going to see you again.

They had opened her trunk. They were spilling her clothes
and petticoats – things so familiar that they were a part of her –
out onto the muddy road. One of them picked up a petticoat and
held it against himself, did a few dance steps and laughed.
Another lifted out a black dress and was about to do the same,
when the package fell from its folds. He stooped and picked it up.
He broke the seals and ripped it open. For a moment his body
concealed it from Maria. Then he grinned, and held it out for his
comrades to see.

It was a painting, of the tortured face of Christ. Someone
laughed.

And someone bellowed with fury.

Crack-crack-crack
and smoke in the air! The clearing was
suddenly full of riders, horses turning. Men roared in rage and in
hatred. The Frenchman before Maria was trying to mount, one
hand still clutching the painting. Maria saw a white-uniformed
horseman appear beyond him, point a short carbine at him as he
rose into the saddle, and fire from a range of two feet. The man
fell, heavily into the mud. The riderless horse bolted. Other
horses were turning in the clearing. Swords flashed and there
were more cries. Horses, some of them with riders, were galloping
along the road. More horsemen followed, many in white
uniforms, pounding after them with wild shouts and laughter.

The sounds of pursuit diminished. Wisps of smoke drifted in
the clearing and stung the eyes. A half-dozen mounted men,
wearing the white uniforms and black boiled-leather helmets of
the Erzberg dragoons, idled around the coach. One paused
over the fallen Frenchman, who was moving feebly on the
ground.

'Ho, you naughty boy,' the dragoon said. 'You're not dead yet!'
He lifted his carbine, sighted it down on the fallen man, and fired.
There was a rush of smoke, and the Frenchman lay utterly still.

'Are you all right, madame?' asked a sergeant, touching his
helmet to Anna.

'I believe so, thank you,' said Anna faintly.

'Ehrlich is hurt,' Maria added. Her throat was sore. She must
have been screaming. She hobbled over to the fallen soldier, and,
closing her eyes, fumbled for the painting that lay on the ground
beside him. Then she looked at it, at the oiled, dying face; in the
clearing with the dead man at her feet.

'I don't understand,' she said hoarsely.

Wéry sat at his desk in the barracks with his head in his
hands. It was night. Before him, in the yellow light of a
candle, lay a copy of the hurriedly-written report from the
commanding officer of the dragoon squadron. He had read it
three times. He knew every word that was in it. Now he was no
longer reading but staring at the page.

Once, in a skirmish, he had seen a soldier's hat knocked from
the man's head by a bullet. The man had simply stood, in line
with his fellows, looking stupidly at it where it lay on the ground.
Then, all of a sudden, he had sat down. He had remained there,
with his limbs shaking, until an officer had come walking along
the line to put the hat back on the man's head and tell him to
stand up again.

Wéry knew how that soldier had felt. He felt the same
now . . .
By good fortune they were not inconvenienced, and only a
coachman suffered injuries . . .

The dragoons had had a good day. A half-troop of French
cavalry routed, prisoners taken, and ladies – one of them goddaughter
of the Prince – rescued from distress. The squadron
leader must hope for promotion for this. Certainly he wrote to
make the most of his foresight in arranging patrols up to
the border markers. But he was also careful to emphasize that the
clash had taken place within the borders of Erzberg. He said so
more than once, leading Wéry to suspect that he was in fact not
quite sure on the point, and feared that it might lead to trouble.

Never, by God, never! thought Wéry. And if his word counted
for anything, the dragoon would have his promotion and more.
If anything had happened to her . . .
(By good fortune they were not
inconvenienced –
what delicacy of phrase!) If anything had
happened to her, he thought, he might have blown his brains out.
Dear God – what had he been doing to involve them? What had
he been doing?

How could he face her – even supposing she was willing to
see him again?

But, he reminded himself, he had had nothing to do with her
going. He would have begged her not to go, if he had known.
And – and the danger she had fallen into had not been his
making. Freelance banditry by the French was a common hazard
of the roads these days, although it was unusual so far south.

Or could he be sure even of that? A half-troop, with no
wagons, or at least none mentioned in the report. That was a
scouting mission, not a foraging party. Probably it had been part
of a larger force that had divided itself to cover a wider area.
Heaven knew what they had been looking for. But yes, couriers
to Erzberg could be a possibility. They knew Erzberg was hostile.
And they knew too (because Lanard would have told them) that
in Erzberg there was the man Wéry. They would have guessed
what he did, and why.

And that was the truth. Whether he had asked her to go or
not, whether they had been looking for her or not, he had made
her a part of what he did. Against all the iron and powder
of
France, against that blind and savage will – how could he hope
that she would not suffer, as Kranz had suffered, and some day he
too must suffer, for what he was choosing to do? He could
picture himself sitting here in this same room, with a report from
the same man in front of him, except that this time the dragoons
had arrived a half-hour too late to prevent rape or murder.

Yes, in the small hours he might indeed have turned to his pistol.

He sat and looked at the page. A bell in the city tolled eleven
o'clock. He was still there when it tolled the quarter hour. A
carriage rattled in the street and distant voices spoke in the
barrack square. He knew that he should go to bed. Late nights
and early mornings left him dazed and foggy, and he was due to
see Bergesrode at dawn again the next day with the report that
he had written about the Illuminati meeting in the Adelsheim
house. But he did not think he could sleep.

Steps sounded on the steep wooden stair – more than one set
of feet. He wondered wearily who it was. The sounds stopped at
his door. There was a knock.

'Yes!' he groaned.

The orderly sergeant looked in. His face was wooden.

'Person to see you, sir,' he said, and withdrew.

It was her.

He jumped to his feet with an exclamation. His chair tumbled
and clattered on the floor.

'I am sorry to disturb you,' she said.

In his astonishment he had to fight for words. 'Are – are you
alone?'

'My maid is on the stair.'

She was tired – as tired as he was. It told in her voice.

'I – regret I have nowhere for you to sit,' said Wéry. 'Please,
er . . . please take my chair.' He turned and fumbled for it. In
his confusion, and the dim light, he felt very clumsy. 'Please sit,'
he begged, and then recollecting himself, 'When did you arrive?'

'Thank you,' she said. 'We reached the house this afternoon.
My mother supposes me to be resting, and has gone to Lady
Jenz's. I must be back before she returns.'

'Indeed you should be resting,' exclaimed Wéry. 'I have read
. . . such terrible things.'

'Thank you again,' she said. 'Indeed I have been much
distressed. Yet I know it was nothing to what you and my brother
and so many others must have seen. I have come with a message.'

A message?

Wéry almost sat down. Just in time he remembered that his
chair was gone from behind him, and that she was sitting on it.
He settled awkwardly on the edge of his desk. It put him above
her, and also rather close.

'I fear it is not what you were hoping for,' she said, looking up
into his face. 'It is from Ludwig Jürich. He says you must expect
no more help from his house.'

He drew breath. 'I – see. Did he say anything more?'

'He knew I had come to see if I could bring you what you
wanted. But he – he fears for his house, and the people in it. He
says he is under suspicion.'

'I see,' said Wéry digesting this.

She seemed to have been expecting some rebuke, or at least
disappointment, for she said,'I almost decided to stay, nonetheless.
But I was given something and I assumed it was what you
wanted. He said it was for you.'

'He?'

'One of the servants. It must have come from Maximilian
Jürich, but I did not know that.' She took from a bag a tattered
sheet of parchment and spread it on the desk for him. The
haunted face of Christ rolled its eyes at the low ceiling.

'I see he has sent you one of these already,' she sighed, indicating
the picture on the wall behind Wéry. 'He is mad, of course. I
did not realize that he knew you.'

Wéry stared at the painting. For a long moment he could not
speak. Then he said: 'He is not mad. Well, I do not think he is.'

'He paints this face, again and again. Nothing else.'

'Yes, it weighs on him. This face . . . There was a man, you see.
One of his own men, when he was with the republican militia
during the siege of Mainz. Maximilian had him arrested, and shot
by firing squad. I do not even know why – perhaps he thought
the man would betray us to the French. I saw the body afterwards,
when I was waiting to cross the river. It was lying against
the palace wall with the lice crawling out of its clothes . . .'

He touched the painting with the tip of his finger.

'This is the face of that man.'

It lay on the desk, rolling its dying eyes in the gloom. It was
real. It had come at last.

'It is what I needed,' he said hoarsely. 'I am most truly grateful.'

She frowned at it. Plainly she could not see how it could be
so important. She said, 'Well, I am glad, then,' in a voice that had
no gladness in it.

'You should rest,' said Wéry.

'I cannot rest without forgetting,' she said. 'And I do not think
I can forget.'

She rose to her feet. He copied her.

'Lady Maria,' he said formally. 'I have said I am grateful. I
cannot truly express how grateful I am. But I beg you to believe
me that had I guessed what you would do or the risk you would
run, I should not have suffered you to do it. Indeed I have slept
poorly for many nights, thinking of you. And I wish . . .'

Something in his tone had caught her attention. She looked at
him.

'I wish to say . . .' he stammered. 'How much – how much I
admire you. I have feelings for you that I find it difficult to
express. It is surprising but . . . I have to tell you this. I do not
know that I can ask you . . . I mean, you are . . .'

He flushed. There were no words that could tell her what she
was in his thoughts.

'You must not say such things,' she said.

'I must not. And yet also I must.'

She gave a weary gesture with her hand, and he fell silent.

'I must go. Sir, you have helped us, but it will do no good to
talk any more.'

'Yes,' he sighed and looked at the floor.

'All that I ask is that as little should be said of our journey as
possible. My mother is already angry with both Anna and myself.
The more she hears gossip of it, the worse it 'will be.'

He cleared his throat, fighting for composure. 'I shall do whatever
I can. I will . . . May I see you to your carriage?'

'I think . . . Thank you, but it is better not.'

It was a quarter to midnight. Wéry lifted his head from his hands
and groaned.

Work, he thought. Work was the remedy.

He lit another candle, and placed both candles close to the
paper on the desk. He rose, took the other picture from the wall
and set it on the desk beside the new one. Then he drew from a
drawer a curved reading-glass. He looked at the two pictures, side
by side. The anguished faces of the man on the cross writhed
before him. With a dull heart he placed the reading-glass on the
new picture and bent over it. The face of the dead Christ swelled
from the canvas, blotting out the memory of the face that had left
the room.

He had to look beyond the suffering. That was the secret. As
if he were a general or a prince, he had to look past it. He had to
look at the detail of the background beyond.

It had changed. Where the old picture had shown a general
receiving his orders, there was now only empty middle distance.
The town, with the camp around it, was still there – painted
rather larger than it had been in the previous picture. And the
river was still busy with boats crossing. Probably there was some
significance in the detail here, but he could not see it at once.

To the left of the face there were also changes. The picture of
the Roman soldier stepping across the river had been replaced
with a group of figures. The Roman was still there. He had his
sword drawn and raised to strike. Moving the glass directly over
him and peering closely, Wéry could see the letters at his belt:
A d A –
the Armée d'Allemagne.

Kneeling before the Roman, with his head bowed for the
blow, was a man in a bishop's robes and cap. On the robes of
the bishop were a pattern of lions, like the lions on the arms
of the Prince-Bishop of Erzberg.

A number of other figures stood by, watching impassively. One
wore an Emperor's crown. Another had an Elector's cap and the
blue and white diamonds of Bavaria, Erzberg's largest German
neighbour. And among them was a figure with two faces, holding
an hourglass: the Roman god Janus.

Janus: January.
The Army of Germany will strike at the Bishop in
January.

January was already on them. But the left side, Maximilian had
said, would be for the interpretation. The facts would be on the
right. And Wéry could find nothing there that was new.

He swept the reading glass over the right hand side of the
picture again. Hills, trees, bushes, and the town in the distance
with the camp around it and the river beyond. All was as before.
He placed the glass over the camp and peered down at the
enlarged, distorted image. He counted the tents. Seven, as before.
And horses and cannons . . .

Wait! The cannons!

There were four shown, lined in a row before the tents. In the
previous picture there had only been three. He re-centred the
glass on the fourth and peered closely.

It was shown larger than the others. A tiny figure of a man had
been painted in by one wheel to make that clear. This was not a
field gun. This was a siege weapon.

So that was it. Fact:
The Army at Wetzlar is being reinforced with
siege guns.
Interpretation:
They are preparing to strike at the Bishop in
January.

This, these two sentences, was the message. This was what he
had bought, at the price of Balcke-Horneswerden's honour, and
his own.

This was what Maximilian and Hartmann – yes, and the
unwilling Ludwig, and his wife, and Maria too – had risked so
much to bring to him.

Now he must decide whether he believed it.

He sat back and rubbed his aching eyes.

There were so many drawbacks to this form of communication.
Details might be missed, or misinterpreted. A page full of writing
would have told him more. But even writing could only get him
so far. He could not question the written page, demand more
details, or check his understanding of the meaning. And a page of
writing, even in cipher, would have betrayed itself to the enemy
if ever it fell into their hands – as this one nearly had. This was a
far better disguise.
They will see only the head,
Maximilian had
promised him. And indeed they would. It was Maximilian's
device, and Maximilian's way. The dead man from the streets of
Mainz. The man whose face Maximilian carried in his head every
moment of his day, whom he had had shot by his own men, and
whose innocence, by this means, he proclaimed to all the world.
No, he was not mad. Not quite.

The Army of Wetzlar has been reinforced with siege guns.
It was
exactly the sort of thing that Hartmann, travelling up and down
the Rhine, would be able to find out. Getting guns that size
across the Rhine could not be done easily. Covered barges,
gathered at night, loading . . . No. Even then there would be too
much movement, business, noise. The crews and barges must
come from somewhere. Man them with soldiers, and still the
soldiers would talk. Take it as fact.