The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  Fernhausen wore the uniform of a major of the Fapps battalion, but he had not marched with his unit in years. Nor, to Wéry's knowledge, had his duties ever taken him beyond the walls of Erzberg. He was the second private secretary of the Prince himself. There were very few men in Erzberg who knew the mind of their ruler better.

  Von Uhnen seated himself slowly on the bench, watching them. Wéry could sense a hurried reassessment going on behind his poetic face.

  Balcke and Fernhausen: two men of the Prince's closest circle. It was as if the ghostly presence of the Prince himself were sitting in the reeking coffee house with them. Indeed, the Prince must be with them in some sense, for although Balcke might conceivably have visited the coffee house on his own account, Fernhausen would never have dreamed of spending time here if he were off-duty.

  The Prince: his wills and whims ran through his palace corridors and out into the city, carried on the lips of hurrying subordinates who would preface every demand with the words 'His Highness has asked . . . He has said . . . He expects . . .' as if the mere reference to the man were an incantation that would guarantee compliance. And very often it did. The Prince's favour mattered. Many posts and positions were in his gift, which would allow the fortunate recipient to drink in some measure from the trough of Erzberg's revenues. His disfavour mattered too: even the most influential of Imperial Knights might be dismissed or exiled at his word. His lesser subjects might face imprisonment or worse. And in the orbit of his personality the normal rules of caste and order might be bent, to some degree, so that men of different backgrounds and persuasions might nevertheless make common cause for some end that the Prince thought good.

  And now Uhnen would be realizing that it had been Wéry, the upstart, the foreigner, who had brought these men of the Prince to this place.

  'Delightful place you have found for us,Wéry,' Fernhausen said airily. 'The coffee, too. Delightful. I feel inclined for another cup. May I trouble you?'

  'Don't you move a muscle for him, Wéry! Let the Fapps fop get it himself,' said Heiss, (who must have known that Fernhausen, crammed into the corner beyond Balcke, could no more have squeezed past the Count than he would have dared ask the mountainous man to move.) 'And how the devil are you? Are they treating you properly, those fine cavalry officers?'

  'Well enough,' lied Wéry. 'They let me get on with what I have to do.'

  'Damned right!' said Heiss. 'See that you do, Uhnen. I know you fancy lot. If a man's a shade light on his quarterings you treat him as if he's got two heads. But Wéry's different, yes? He's a comrade in arms.'

  'I know that,' said Uhnen stiffly.

  Heiss was not from a family of Imperial Knights. He was of the service nobility, who held their title from the Prince, by virtue of the offices they performed. And at this moment Uhnen was less inclined than ever to accept lectures from an inferior.

  'Damned right,' growled Heiss. 'What are you doing here anyway? I thought that old woman Altmantz had locked all his hussars up for the day.'

  'Perhaps he did. But I seem to have come, all the same.'

  'I know what it is. It's the girl again. You think you'll curry favour with her by paying your respects in the teeth of orders and the mob, that's what. Look at this, Fernhausen! You spout your damned poetry, but here's the true romantic. Last June he spent his leave riding secretly off all the way to Bohemia to go down on one knee to Adelsheim's sister. And for what? She showed him the door, poor fellow.'

  'Adelsheim's sister?' repeated Wéry, surprised.

  'And do you know,' said Uhnen coldly, 'I could instead have spent it frequenting Madame Charlotte's, as others do? How is she, dear Heiss?'

  'Anyway you've left it damned late, both of you. It's nearly . . .' Heiss pulled out a watch and chain. 'Damn! I think my watch has stopped.'

  'It hasn't,' said Fernhausen. 'But it's only five minutes since you last looked at it.'

  There was an air of tension about the table. It told in Fernhausen's drawl, in Balcke's silence, in the oaths that peppered Heiss's speech. Balcke's coffee had barely been touched. Heiss's had been drained to the last drop. They were like men in a little fortress: a redoubt of coffee and tobacco smoke. The babble and smells of the place drew around them like a cloak, warm and reassuring. But the walls were thin. One step out through the door again, and it would be night. And the night was smelling blood.

  Wéry realized that his heart was still beating hard, even though it must have been a quarter of an hour since Uhnen and he had run through the alleys together.

  (Quarter of an hour? Half an hour? Time did strange things on the brink of action. No wonder Heiss kept looking at his watch!)

  'So Wéry took pity on you and brought you to us,' said Fernhausen. 'Like Virgil guiding Dante through the Inferno?'

  'A little like that,' said Uhnen stiffly. 'And now I seem to have stumbled on a conspiracy. Am I to be admitted to it?'

  Everyone looked at Balcke.

  'Yes, you can come along,' said Balcke gruffly. 'Two or three more will make no difference. But you're to keep your mouth shut afterwards.'

  'We wait here until the family moves the body,' said Heiss, lowering his voice. 'My coachman's watching outside. He'll tell us when. Rother's people will take the coffin back downriver to Hohenwitz to give them the shortest overland route to Adelsheim. So their barge will pass under the bridges.'

  'And?' He looked at Balcke.

  Balcke said nothing.

  'And there will be a gesture,' finished Fernhausen. 'From the army. And I'm to come along as a bit of comfort from His Highness. It's rather neat, in fact.'

  'So he's going to side with the army after all?' said Uhnen. 'I must say, I thought he'd . . .'

  'Yes and no, of course,' said Fernhausen. 'Insofar as this is a matter between the city and the army, the Prince will have no part in it. But it is not just that. Canon Rother wants to show his strength in the city, because . . . well, we need not go into it too much. But it suits the Prince to demonstrate that the Canon, and the peace party, are not as strong as they think they are. And he doesn't like mobs.'

  Mobs. Wéry looked at his hands.

  '. . . Rother's in the pay of the French,' Heiss was saying. 'That's what it is! First they start agitation in the city – the peace party, republicans, Illuminati and whatnot – and then they march in. That's what they've just done to Venice, isn't it? Hoche is camped at Wetzlar. He could be on us in three days, if he has a mind . . .'

  Each of them had their reason to be here, thought Wéry. And each man's reason might seem quaint, or even crazy, to the others, set beside the risk they would run.

  Take Heiss, now distracting himself and others with conspiracy theories about the enemy within. Why should a good and rather stupid man put himself in the way of a disgraceful death? Heiss was here because Balcke was here: out of dog-like, unthinking loyalty. Neither of them saw anything strange about that.

  So why was Balcke here? Because he, more than anyone in Erzberg, represented the army. It was the army, in the first instance, that was Canon Rother's target. So Balcke and his colonels would lock up their men for safety. But he must meet the coffin, and its hangers-on, because it was unthinkable that the army could not salute the passing of one of its own. For Balcke, it was a matter of honour, like standing under cannon fire.

  And Fernhausen, who was not stupid and was no man's dog, was here because of politics: because his Prince wished the army to understand that he had not abandoned it altogether.

  For these things, they would each risk being torn bloodily apart.

  'But what about the peace?' protested Uhnen. 'Won't the French be packing up and going home now? And anyway, the Emperor won't abandon us. He's said so.'

  And Uhnen was here for love! The fact had slipped out so naturally that Wéry had barely felt surprised by it. Now he knew he was astonished. Under that distant, elegant exterior, it seemed, beat a passion as strong as any man's – strong enough to have brought this aristocrat out onto the mob-ridd
en streets. And he was surprised, too, that he should find it so disturbing that Uhnen's love was for the sister of Albrecht von Adelsheim: for the woman whose cool fingers had held his own bleeding hand.

  So why then was he here, Michel Wéry, waiting for the chance to court death to see a dead man's coffin? Not for Balcke-Horneswerden (although he could respect a man, even an aristocrat, who chose his subordinates for their merits rather than their connections). Nor was it for Maria von Adelsheim. The memory of her was strong, but he would not have thought of doing such a thing for her sake. Of course it had been his own proposal that had brought him here. It was his own plan, and therefore he should be part of it. But he would not have put it forward if he had not wanted to come in the first place. And Albrecht, for all that he had been, was gone. He could not sit up in his coffin, laugh and shake a friend's hand. What was it for, then?

  How did it bring the defeat of France any closer?

  '. . . The Emperor has Bonaparte's heel on his windpipe,' said Heiss. 'And why should he risk any more for Germany? Where were the Princes when it started to get rough? Prussia made peace. So did Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Baden, Kassel . . .'

  'Much good it's done Kassel—'

  '—They dropped like ripe plums, one after the other!'

  'We didn't.'

  'Damn right. And do you think Hoche will forget that?'

  Why do they chatter? Wéry flexed his fingers below the table, and caught Balckes eye. The big man was saying nothing. He was sitting with his coffee still untouched before him. He was waiting. They all were. Heiss was looking at his watch again. What was Time doing? Come on!

  'My dear Heiss,' said Fernhausen loftily. 'Allow me to correct you on one point. Our illustrious Canon Rother may be many things. He may even be an Illuminatus, as you suggest. But he is no more in league with the French than are you.'

  'He's the damnedest, slipperiest, most opportunistic bastard in the whole of the Chapter,' said Heiss, thrusting his watch angrily back into his pocket. 'And that's saying a lot! And he's got a whole string of others dancing with him now: Löhm, Jenz, Machting, and now the Adelsheims. Damn, but I hate to see a good man's death used this way . . .'

  'Lady Adelsheim is Rother's cousin, of course. So in one sense they've always . . .'

  'Wait a moment,' said Balcke.

  The chatter stopped at once.

  'I want to hear what Wéry has to say.'

  His eyes were fixed on Wéry like a pair of muskets.

  'Go on, Wéry. What do you think of all this? What are you hearing on these clever little trips of yours?'

  They had all turned to look at him. Heiss had his elbows on the table, and there were tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. Von Uhnen's expression was mournful, as if he were expecting to hear of the death of a relative. Even Fernhausen, behind his blank expression, had paused to pay attention.

  Wéry had meant to stay out of this. But . . .

  'The French won't leave Wetzlar,' he said flatly. 'Not until there's a treaty with the Emperor. Maybe not even then.'

  'Sure of that?'

  'Yes.'

  Balcke's face hardened at the thought of eighty thousand French soldiers camped within three days of his city.

  'And?' he prompted.

  Wéry shrugged. 'The Prince is exposed. He's still harbouring French émigrés – d'Erles and his party. Never forget how much Paris fears the émigré. That, more than anything, was why they went to war in '92. Moreover he's a churchman, and loyal to the Emperor, so they hate him. And he's small, so they despise him, too.'

  With Balcke, it was best to be direct.

  'Well,' grunted the Count at length. 'That's why we keep you, I suppose. To tell us what we need to hear.'

  'I'll say something else, if I may.'

  'That I won't like? Go on.'

  'Squabbling makes you smaller still.'

  'What do you mean?'

  (What did he mean? And with the cudgels gathered on the far side of the river? Dear Mother of God!)

  'You're at it all the time!' he said harshly. 'If it's not fighting Rother and the peace party, it's fighting the Ingolstadt set: the Ultramontanists and all those clergy who still live in the Middle Ages. Or you are chasing stories of Illuminati. Or it's the Jews. Meanwhile your guilds are at each other's throats, and at the same time they band together to hound any unlicensed trader who tries to make a new start. It goes from top to bottom of the city . . .'

  He glanced sideways, and caught Heiss's agonized expression. And yes, of course it was impertinent. And naive. But damn it, they could all be dead in an hour! Why not say what he felt?

  'Now see here, Wéry,' rumbled Balcke, leaning forward. 'I know what this looks like to you. Little boys pushing at each other in their sandcastle while the tide comes in, you think. You'd like us all to line up in a nice straight line and fight the French to the last man. Well, I'd like that too. But the little boys have knives, Wéry. And so what's a boy to do, do you think? Let the other boy stab first, I suppose? Is that how you did it in the Brabant?'

  'In Brabant I watched a cause fall apart,' Wéry exclaimed. 'I saw it in Paris and Mainz too. Why should I see it here?'

  'Because we're damned human, and that's what you've got to work with!' roared Balcke, reddening as he thumped the table. 'There's little I can do about Canon Rother. And there's damn all I can do about the Ingolstadt set! The Ingolstadt stuff is church politics . . .' He wagged a finger at Wéry. 'It's been going for twenty years or more, back into the old Prince's time. Whenever we tried to reform anything – education, the prayer service, taxation, you name it – the Ingolstadt set fought us tooth and nail. "Saving the religion" they call it. They were bigots. They still are. But when we started on the monasteries – that's when it got really poisonous. We were hitting their pockets, then. And no one forgets. That's why the Prince goes so canny now. What can you do about that, hey?'

  Think of Old Blinkers as a cart on a slope, Albrecht had once said. Once he starts moving, it's absolutely clear where he's going to go. And you'd better not be in the way.

  And here he was, in the way. His jaw tightened, but he would not drop his eyes.

  'I've been wondering, Wéry,' said Fernhausen (still in that maddening drawl). 'Is that why you keep so close to Bergesrode? Or is it just that you both loathe the French?'

  'Bergesrode?' said Uhnen in surprise.

  'Oh yes,' said Fernhausen. He leaned back, enjoying the group's attention again. 'Oh yes, Bergesrode. His Highness's principal private secretary, and full initiate of the Ingolstadt set. Our – ah – former revolutionary friend here is quite a favourite with my priestly colleague. Can you imagine it?'

  Von Uhnen was surprised.

  'I'd have thought you would loathe everything he stood for!' he said, addressing Wéry directly for the first time since they had entered the coffee-house.

  'I do. Believe me, I do.'

  Slavery of the mind. Blind obedience to Rome. Yes of course he loathed that. And once the defeat of France had been secured, he would be as pleased as Balcke to see Bergesrode and the Ingolstadt swept away. He would do it himself, if he could.

  And then . . . then it would be the turn of the very men he sat with. These aristocrats, well-meaning perhaps, thinking themselves reformists, but blind, blind and selfish and tyrannical in their privileges. If they could not be brought to step down into equality, in the end they too must go.

  Von Uhnen gave him a long look, as if he had guessed at the thoughts that had chased through Wéry's mind.

  'Well then, my Virgil,' he murmured. 'You may have to watch your step after all.'

  'That's right!' exclaimed Heiss. 'See here, Wéry I like you. Never mind what you were or what you think of us. I like you because you work hard and you don't pretend to be what you're not. But Bergesrode is a bad case. He'd be a Jesuit if they hadn't been banned. So mind where you put your feet. And don't go playing games when you shouldn't!'

  'I must say,' added Fernhausen. 'I've been surprised th
at someone with your past could become so close to a representative of the – ah, what did you say? – "those of the clergy who still live in the Middle Ages". Yes, very apt.'

  'I am to report to Bergesrode, and so I do,' said Wéry bluntly. 'But yes, he and I agree about the French. The Prince thinks the same.'

  'Well, we can all do that,' said Heiss. 'Apart from Rother and his crew . . .'

  He broke off, looking over Wéry's shoulder. 'Ah, at last!'

  'Thank God! At last!'

  A man – a servant in a brown cloak – stood in the doorway to the coffee house, beckoning urgently.

  VIII

  The Bridge and

  the Barge

  They rose from the table in a clatter. 'Careful now,' said Balcke. 'Coats, and not too much hurry. We'll not be thanked for making a mess of this.'

  Balcke walked with a stick, leaning on Heiss's arm. His artificial leg, shaped to fit into his boot, clumped as they made their way out into the late evening. Above them the Celesterburg palace bulked high and black against the afterglow of sunset. The river was lined with lights. The man in the brown cloak was some twenty paces ahead of them, at the New Bridge. He was still beckoning. With Balcke moving ponderously in their midst, the officers made their way over to join him.

  'There, sir,' said the man, hoarsely.

  'Thank you, Peter,' said Heiss. 'Fetch the coach now, please.'

  Over on the far side of the river, a long musket-shot upstream, a small crowd had appeared at the doors of the Saint Christopher Chapel. The doors were open. There were lanterns there. Men were bringing something out from inside, carried high on their shoulders. That must be the coffin. And the men around it would be Canon Rother's own servants.

  Nearer, at the quay, a narrow barge was moored: a dark bulk among the deep shadows of the riverside, waiting to take the dead man home to his family.

  A whistle broke out from the Saint Christopher square. Men were moving there – black shadows against the glare of a brazier. Wéry saw one stroll a few paces, hands apparently in his pockets, to take a better look at the party at the church doors. Then he turned and called. Others were coming, striding forward. There were sticks and cudgels among them. And the crowd was growing. More figures were running across the square and out of the Saint Simeon Street. From the crown of the New Bridge the officers watched them.