The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  'Oh, I am sorry, Anna,' she said. 'Let us not speak of it. Only I had – I felt suddenly and very strongly what Albrecht would have thought if he had been with us and where he would have wanted them to go.'

  'He was a dear boy.'

  'Oh, always. Do you remember him in the fig tree, refusing to come down?'

  'Of course,' said Anna, smiling sadly. 'I am surprised that you do, however. You cannot have been five years old.'

  'Oh, I was so frightened for him! But he was not.'

  'Such a time he gave me, that day . . .'

  And they laughed, and they wept together. And then they remembered other things, terrible and dramatic as they had seemed at the time, now bathed golden in the afterglows of childhood: all their little rebellions, torn clothes, scraped knees, a broken door, a horse ride and a fall in a pool. And they smiled at each one, and sometimes they laughed too.

  'Now,' said Maria, putting down her glass. 'I want to dance. Will you dance with me, Anna?'

  'If you wish. Although you might want an accompanist more.' She looked around, puzzled, as though she felt that every room in the Celesterburg should have its harpsichord in the corner.

  'No, you will dance with me. We will do the Lightstep and I will hum the music for us. Look, here are candles. Do you know the Lightstep, Anna?'

  'I have watched you often enough.'

  They had the footmen clear and move the table to give them room, and the rug beneath it to give them something hard to dance on. Then they dismissed them. Maria took the candles and stood to one side, motioning Anna to take position in the middle of the floor.

  'Now,' she said, and she began to hum. Silently, Anna went through the opening movements. Maria watched. You did not often seen Anna dance, unless she was showing you how something should be done. She had a slow, stately style, so Maria naturally found herself humming and tonguing the music rather slower than it was normally played. But Anna knew exactly what she was doing as she swept through one figure after another to the end of her sequence. She came to a stand before Maria, and the candles changed hands.

  'Now,' said Maria again, and flung herself into the dance. She had speeded up her music without thinking about it, and she followed it, imagining the throng of other dancers, the smiles, the great orchestra humming in her head and her heart as her feet flew and her body floated on the moment.

  'Did you know it was a charm?' she gasped, as she changed places with Anna again.

  'A charm?' Anna was turning dutifully in the middle of the room without the benefit even of Maria's humming.

  'It's for a man,' Maria said, knowing it might be tactless and yet wanting to say it anyway. 'To bring him home, and keep him safe.'

  'My dear, I am dancing for you!

  'Dance then,' laughed Maria. 'And I'll dance with you.'

  And now, together, a candle each, and one-two-three and one-two-three and turn and back-two-three and humming the music to its climax and up!

  She held her candle above her head for a long second. Then she brought it down to the level of her eyes. She was breathing hard, as if she and Anna had indeed danced the full dance and at the speed set by the Prince's Orchestra playing in high season.

  It had not been tonight, she thought, as she looked the candle in the eye. This was a debt I owed to Anna. But it will be soon. Tomorrow night. I have already committed myself.

  She put the candle gently back on the table and left it trembling in the draughty palace air.

  'We must go to bed now, Anna,' she said. 'You will need to start early.'

  XXXIII

  Third Night

  The next morning she sent to the citadel headquarters for an escort, and to the palace stables for Dominus to be made ready with a side-saddle. She would accompany Anna to the east gate, to be sure she was away safely. But she did not want to ride in Anna's coach, just in case there was a last, loving attempt at kidnap by the Adelsheim party. Anna smiled wanly when she emerged to see Maria waiting by her horse's head.

  'I will be like your cousin Ludwig,' Maria said. 'I will open the doors for you.'

  'Dear man,' sighed Anna. 'I hope all is well with him.'

  'I am sure it must be,' said Maria firmly. 'He is very wise, I think.'

  Their escort arrived, already mounted. He was the same portly, grey-haired officer who had accompanied her from the west wall the day before. His name was Bottrop, and he told Maria that he had orders to be available to her whenever she required it. He led them importantly out of the citadel and down into the city.

  The Bamberg Way was heavy with wagons, loaded with goods and with those well-to-do families who could afford to flee the city. Maria looked from face to face as she managed her horse along beside the window of Anna's carriage. She saw their empty, anxious eyes fixed on the distant gate, begging for a chance to get through it before the trap closed. She remembered the crowded streets of Mainz, the day the French had come. Friends, whatever happens will be as God wills.

  There was no shouting, though. There was no panic yet. Maria, indeed, felt very calm. She was not struggling to escape. She was going to stay, and be unashamed.

  The wagons ahead of them moved on. The coach followed. The gate was near. A sergeant came to check papers that Bottrop handed down to him. Anna leaned through the window.

  'My dear . . .'

  Maria checked her horse, smiling pleasantly. She was armoured against any last appeal. Perhaps Anna saw that. Her face was lined and heavy with emotion.

  'Saints be with you,' she said. 'Write to me as soon as you can.'

  'I will. I will write to you at Effenpanz. Oh, Anna . . .'

  She wanted to embrace her. But that was impossible from the side-saddle. And Anna had turned away inside the coach. Maria thought she had begun to cry. Suddenly she wanted to cry, too.

  'Go on, Ehrlich,' she called throatily to the driver. 'Don't stop before Adelsheim.'

  'Yes, my Lady.'

  'And don't let anyone come back. After today, the roads may not be safe.'

  He nodded, but did not answer. Perhaps even Ehrlich was having trouble with his voice now. He shook the reins and grunted to the horses. The coach rolled forward, out under the gate, bearing in it, weeping, the dearest woman in all Maria's life. She watched it dwindle down the roadway. She felt sorry, and guilty. But she could not, even at that last moment, have climbed into the coach and let it carry her away.

  'No sir, not you. I'm sorry. You'll have to turn around.'

  It was the gate sergeant, standing by a cart in which sat a heavy-set man in a good buff coat, a woman and two boys.

  'I shall do no such thing!' cried the man. 'I have business in Bamberg, and I must go there at once.'

  'To be sure you have, and your lady and boys too, no doubt. But reasons of state, sir. You can't go.'

  'Reasons of state? You want to press my boy, I daresay. Sergeant, he is just twelve. Damn me if I'll let you take him!'

  'I'm thirteen, Father!'

  'Hey!' called a voice from the next wagon down the line. 'What's the hold-up there?'

  'It isn't the boy, sir, as I'm sure you know. It's you. Your papers say you're a doctor. Doctors, carpenters, bricklayers and blacksmiths – they're all needed in the city. None of them's to leave without a special pass. And you haven't got one, sir.'

  'Special pass? What nonsense is this? Who's giving out these special passes that I've not heard of until now?'

  'I guess it must be the Commander of the citadel, sir.'

  'I see.'

  The doctor in the wagon seemed to think for a moment.

  Then, leaning forward, and with less bluster, he said, 'And what do you suppose one of these special passes might cost, hey, sergeant?'

  'Couldn't say, sir.'

  'Thirty gulden?'

  The sergeant hesitated. Then he, too, dropped his voice. 'A bit more than that, sir, I guess.'

  Because of the gap between them, and the background hubbub, they could not sink to whispers. Their words carried to
Maria clearly.

  'Well, sergeant. I just don't have time to go to the citadel and get a pass. But I can see you're a sensible man, and helpful too, I dare say?'

  'That depends, sir.'

  'Oh, I wouldn't ask you to go out of your duty, sergeant. But maybe you can save us both a bit of time. If I give you the money, perhaps you could let me through now and see that the pass is obtained in due course? Then it will be just as if I had it all along, won't it?'

  The sergeant hesitated. 'As to that, sir . . .'

  'Sir!' broke in Maria.

  The two men looked up and saw her. Both men straightened at once.

  She had spoken in a kind of agony, knowing that a bribe was being offered and that if it were accepted the city's defences – Michel's defences – would be weaker. But as she reined her horse closer she was conscious that they were all looking at her: the sergeant, the doctor, the mother with her arms around the boy. Just another family, desperate to escape the city.

  'Sir,' she said, addressing the doctor. 'I should tell you that I have just come from the citadel. I fear that what the sergeant says is true. You will need to apply for your pass in person. I am quite sure of it.'

  And now Bottrop, her escort, had ridden over to see what the fuss was about. In his cocked hat and white uniform he glowered at the conspirators, an emphatic symbol of authority.

  The sergeant cleared his throat.

  'You'll have to apply in person, sir,' he said to the doctor.

  The doctor scowled at Maria, and at Bottrop beyond her. 'But . . .' he began. Then he stopped.

  His wife pawed anxiously at his arm as if to urge him to keep trying.

  'No, my dear,' said the man irritably. 'It is no good. Plainly it is an offence to care too much for our children now. We will go back to the house.'

  'Perhaps, sir,' said Maria desperately, 'perhaps it will be possible for you to find someone else to escort your family?'

  He only glared at her.

  There was an awful time, of cursing and pulling at the horses, before the cart was able to turn in the gateway The doctor fussed and swore and told the soldiers to expect no mercy if their bodies landed on his table in a day or two. The sergeant was abrupt and officious, as if no one should ever think that they might approach him with a bribe. The woman sat beside her husband, with her arms around her youngest child. Her head was down and her eyes dull. Only when the men had at last managed to face the cart around to head off down a side street, did she look up.

  She looked straight at Maria as the cart trundled away.

  How could you? her eyes said. How could you?

  Grimly now, Maria demanded that someone watch her horse. The men saluted as if she was an officer indeed. She and Bottrop climbed the steps to the great bastion north of the gate, but when she finally reached the wall the Adelsheim coach was no more than one of a number of distant dots upon the road. She turned away with a heavy heart and wondered how many people she had made miserable that morning.

  But it is war, she told herself. People must go where they must go and do what they must do. If they do not, there will be far greater misery.

  There were a score of men on the bastion, in various militia uniforms. Most of them were doing nothing except sitting and looking glum. She remembered what Michel had said about talking to people who had nothing to do but wait, so she went across to them and spoke with them, just as if they had been a party of peasants resting from some labour in the woods or fields at Adelsheim.

  In fact, they came from an estate not far from Adelsheim. None of them had actually seen her home or knew any of the Adelsheim folk. But their voices recalled for her the accents of that country and she was glad to stay and talk with them. There was no officer present, but one of them was an old soldier who clearly had some rank with his fellows. He took Bottrop and Maria to the north side of the bastion.

  'This is where they'll come at us, see,' he said.

  Below them was the Craftmarket, a long, narrow space inside the wall, which was usually filled with the stalls of tinkers and woodcarvers and bustling with townspeople. It was bustling now, but with altogether different activities. This was where they had blown the breach in the city's defences while she was away in the Rhineland. A long, low dyke of earth and rubble had been piled up on the line of the old wall. The top of it was being closed with a fence of timbers, with more earth piled on both sides of it. Some of the rubble in the ditch had been cleared away, but it was still possible for determined men to scramble in and out down there. Men were doing so now – working parties, with buckets and barrows, still toiling away to make the moat a fraction deeper in whatever time was left.

  The makeshift earth wall looked very low and thin. The massive bastions to north and south of it cradled it between them like the big brothers of a delicate child.

  'Will it be strong enough?' she asked.

  'No telling, my Lady,' said the man. 'As long as the guns up here are still going, there's a chance. But we don't plan on it. When we get the signal, we fall back and fight them from in the town. Those streets, there and there, they're to be barricaded. Our post is the church there – can't remember what it's called . . .'

  'The Holy Child.'

  'That's the one. And then if that goes, we fall back again. There's a guildhall we're supposed to hold. But by then it'll all be a mess, so I don't reckon to see it. Those tailor-boys won't back us up anyway, that's my thought . . .'

  Bottrop was glaring at him, red-faced. In a moment he would call the man to order.

  'Thing is . . .' the man went on, not the least overawed to be speaking to an officer and an aristocratic lady,'. . . they should have started on those barricades by now. Should blow this row of houses here down, too. Then we'd have a clear shot at them as they came over the top. But if they don't start soon there'll be nothing to hold them when we fall back . . .'

  'Hey, Peter,' said one of the recruits. 'Hear that?'

  'Don't you interrupt a lady,' snarled the old fellow. He turned back to Maria. Then his expression changed.

  It was a curious noise, like distant wind, coming from the north. It was so soft that it might only have been a heaviness in the air. It did not sound like thunder.

  'Peter, what's that?' said the recruit again.

  They all strained to listen. For a moment they heard nothing. Then the sound came again, borne to them down the Vater river.

  'I reckon,' said the old fellow.

  They all watched him as he stood, stooped in the act of listening, frowning at a space in the air before his nose.

  'Is it guns?' asked Maria.

  'I reckon it may be,' the man said.

  'Ours and theirs together, it'll be,' he added. 'Up where the army is, on this side of the river.'

  There was a sudden excitement on the platform. Two or three of the militia ran for their muskets.

  'Now where would you be going?' jeered the old soldier.

  They stopped, sheepishly.

  'You won't see nothing for hours yet. Not this side of sundown anyway. Bide where you are and don't go frightening me with those pop-guns of yours. Half of you can't hold them straight anyway. This afternoon, if His Lordship leaves us alone, we'll have them out and go through the drill again . . .'

  Down in the streets Maria found she could not hear the noise any more. She wondered if the firing had stopped. Nobody about her seemed to have noticed it. Some of the shopkeepers and stall keepers were still trying to do their business. There was a crowd around a miller's wagon, and another at the baker's. Other people were hanging around, singly or in small groups, when they should have been working. Carts passed, bearing people and their goods out of the city. She wondered what the doctor she had seen was doing now. Perhaps they had simply tried their luck at a different gate, and had managed to get through. She hoped so. She, who had felt ashamed to leave the city, now felt ashamed to have prevented a family from leaving it.

  At the west end of the Old Bridge men were knocking loopholes
in the walls of a merchant's house. Two girls were watching them – the merchant's daughters perhaps. The younger, who could not have been more than five, was delighted and clapped her hands and laughed as the iron point of a pick broke through from inside, tumbling fragments of stone and plaster into the street. She ran and jumped up and tried to see in through the new little window that the men had made in her home. But her sister, who must have been a couple of years older, watched in silence. Her eyes were solemn, and she held her thumb to her lip, as if she had been about to start sucking it and had remembered only just in time that she was a big girl now. There was something wrong, her stance said, something awful, about what the men were doing. She knew that, even though everyone had told her that everything would be all right, and her little sister ran about chuckling as the holes were torn in their home. Maria looked away

  How could you? said the hooves of Dominus, clipping and scraping on the cobbles.

  She reached the citadel, and gave her horse over to the footmen at the palace door. They had a message for her. It was an invitation to dine in the palace that night. It was signed 'Gianovi'.

  The neat square of paper trembled in her fingers.

  Gianovi! How had he known she was here?

  'I had intended an engagement for myself,' she said aloud.

  'We were to say, my Lady, that he especially hopes that you will come. He has also invited the citadel Commander.'

  I see.

  This was maddening! She had been promising herself . . . And now, with the firing to the north, there might be no more chances. Why had she delayed?

  Maddening! She could almost picture Gianovi, as he handed his invitation to some clerk, saying, She may he a little reluctant. If so, please tell her that I have also invited the citadel Commander.

  The vile, manipulating man! She could believe every bad word that her mother had said about him, and double. What right had he to presume so?

  But she could not dine alone with Michel now. He would be with the Governor. So she would dine there too. Perhaps it would at least be possible to leave together, to have the maid drop back, to put her arm in his . . .

  Perhaps.