The Empire of Time (16 page)

I grin then close the file. It’s time to get back. Time to find Gruber and close him down.

I return to Potsdam. It is still the evening of the twenty-seventh. A single hour has passed since I was last here, but the shadows are lengthening, and the streets are silent now. At the Black Eagle tavern, the innkeeper, Muller, tells me he saw Gruber earlier in the company of two men: a big, dark-haired man and a weasel of a fellow.

Dankevich.

They bought several flagons of wine, then left.

‘How long ago?’

Muller shrugs. ‘Two hours, maybe three?’

I thank him with a silver thaler, then hurry to Taysen’s stables to the west of the town. As I walk between those neat, Prussian houses, I start trying to think like them. Gruber and I were here for one reason only: to save Frederick’s life.

In seventeen days’ time, Frederick will take on the combined armies of Russia and Austria at Kunersdorf, eighty kilometres east of Berlin. It will be a fateful battle, and Frederick’s forty-eight thousand men – almost half the strength of the enemy force – will be soundly beaten. That much we cannot change. But we can keep Frederick himself alive. Two horses will be shot out from under him on the battlefield, and two musket-balls will penetrate his cloak. The second will kill him. Unless the snuff-box that it hits on the way – a flimsy silver thing, barely capable of deflecting a shot – is replaced by something sturdier.

Historically I knew I had already succeeded. Frederick
had
survived. But unless I actually made the swap, he would not. And then …

It was simple, really. If Frederick died, so too would Prussia, partitioned off between its three great rivals: France, Austria and Russia. Not a square mile of it would survive, and without Prussia there could be no Germany.

Because Frederick had lived, catastrophe was turned into ultimate victory, for though only eighteen thousand of Frederick’s men survived that bloody encounter, by the end of the month Old Fritz would gather together a brand-new force of thirty-three thousand men and, in an act of heroic defiance, steel himself to fight one final battle on the open field before Berlin.

He never had to, of course. His defiance proved enough. Both the Russians and the Austrians withdrew. Prussia was saved, and so, a century further on, its greatest chancellor, Bismarck, would create the German Confederation.

So history functioned. With a little help from us.

As I came into the street where Taysen’s was, I looked up past the walls of the town towards the royal palace. Sanssouci rested on the hills above the town, a marvel of rococo architecture, its elegance understated, like its owner.

He was a wonder, Old Fritz. For six years now he had taken on the rest of mainland Europe and held them off. And not merely held them off, but beaten them soundly on numerous occasions. He was an inspiration to us all. Prussia, a country of four and a half million souls, had faced a coalition whose joint population was over ninety million, and whose combined armies were at least six times the size of Prussia’s own. In the space of nine months, between November 1757 and August 1758, Frederick had crossed a thousand miles of Central Europe and defeated his three main rivals one after another – the French at Rossbach, the Austrians at Leuthen, and the Russians, finally, at Zorndorf. Each time the odds were heavily against him, and each time he emerged from the battlefield the undisputed master. To have won a single one of those battles was remarkable, but to have triumphed in all three …

There was no king to match him in all of Germany’s long history, and I had met them all. But the long struggle had cost Prussia dear. To arm and feed his armies, Frederick had bled his country white. There was barely an animal to be had in the whole of Potsdam, or so Taysen told me as we sat in his office sharing a tankard of beer.

Taysen is an old friend, but this once he says he cannot help.

‘I’ll pay well,’ I say. ‘Whatever you ask.’

He gives the faintest smile. ‘If only it were that easy, Otto. You see, I’ve sold all my horses. Yes, and for a good price. Your friend Gruber—’

‘I need a horse,’ I say. ‘If you can get me one …’

I place a heavy bag of silver thalers on the table before him.

‘Otto, I …’ He shrugs apologetically, but his eyes look longingly at the bag of silver.

‘There must be
one
horse left in Potsdam, surely?’

The notion gets him thinking. He reaches for his beer and downs it, then stands. ‘Wait here,’ he says. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

Thus it is that, twenty minutes later, I am riding north-west towards Berlin on a horse that previously belonged to a captain in the Bayreuth Dragoons. The man, Taysen tells me, was drunk, else he’d never have contemplated the deal, but my only concern is not to be taken as a thief.

Besides, I have other things on my mind. Like where Gruber is. I go to Nauener-Tor and ask the gateman if he’s seen a party heading out on to the Berlin road – merchants, not soldiers, with pack horses, maybe – and he says yes, they passed not an hour back. Four men in a hurry. And he thought it odd, because they had three spare horses with them, and horses being at such a premium, and there being no wares on their saddles …

I thank the old man and ride on, hastening my pace as darkness falls. If I were them I’d find lodgings in Berlin – in one of the poorer quarters, maybe – and do the operation there. But they’ll know I’m after them.

Or someone like me.

There are a dozen inns on the road and I am forced to stop and check each one, but my instinct is that they’ve headed straight for Berlin. If I were them, I’d try to lose myself in some backstreet lodging house and do the operation there, but I know from experience that it’s a mistake to try to outguess the Russians. They rarely do the expected. The only thing I’m certain of is that Gruber cannot jump – not yet – and they won’t leave him here, so until they’re settled somewhere they’ll move fast and try to lose me.

Of course, it’s possible that they left the Berlin road and doubled back in the dark, but it’s unlikely. This is
Angerdorfer
country – farming villages. There’s not a major town for more than fifty miles, unless they make for Brandenburg, and why go there? Besides, Berlin is on the way to Kunersdorf, and, if my hunch is right, they’ll not waste the chance to make a double strike: at us, through Gruber, and at Frederick himself.

It’s after dawn when I reach the Schloss Bridge to the west of the medieval town. The royal residence dominates the skyline on the other bank, but it’s of no interest right now. Frederick has not been to Berlin these past six years. He’s south of here. Until three days ago he could be found on a lonely farm in Duringsvorkwerk, catching up on his correspondence, but having heard of Marshal Saltykov’s victory at Paltzig, he’ll have broken camp immediately and will be marching north, towards Frankfurt-an-der-Oder. In four days’ time he will reach Sommerfeld, and four days after that he will arrive in Frankfurt itself. It’s there I plan to meet him. But not until I’ve dealt with Gruber.

The gate is open and has been for an hour, and when I ask the gatekeeper, he tells me that four men entered the town at daybreak. It would appear that they have let the spare horses go, for the man makes no reference to them when I question him. I leave him with a thaler in his hand and gallop on, down the Schlossfreiheit with its tall and massive buildings, then out into the open space before the Schloss itself.

Berlin, even in this age, is large, and I barely know where to begin my search, but I’m certain they’ll head for one of the poorer, less reputable parts of town. I stop and look about me. There are stalls out already. I dismount and walk across to one that’s selling
Bouletten
, and purchase several of the spicy meatballs that are Berlin’s culinary specialty. I’m hungry, but that’s not the reason why I choose this particular stall. It’s well placed, on the corner of the two main thoroughfares, with a good view of the entire square. The vendor is a big man in his forties, with an untrimmed hedge of a moustache, and as I chew on one of his delicacies, I ask him if he saw four travellers pass earlier.

He’s been here since first light, hoping to catch the early trade, and he remembers the men well. He even describes the fourth of them: a tall man, quite young and yet completely bald, with the look of a priest about him. He says they went south, down the Bruderstrasse.

I thank the man with a coin, then walk my mount across the cobbled square.

I should be hurrying, only I’ve a good idea now where they’ve gone. Berlin is, and always has been, a twin city, and here, to the south of the Schloss, begins its other, smaller half. This is Colln. Where I’m walking now is the nicer, more respectable part of Colln, but to the south, where the town nestles in a curve of the River Spree, is a huddle of streets that spill out on to the river front.

Berlin is a cosmopolitan place, even in this century. You can find a colony of French Huguenots to the south-west in Martinicken, near the Kleine Tiergarten, or Bohemian Protestants in southern Friedrichstadt. There’s a Jewish quarter in Kreuzberg, and smaller gatherings of Poles and Slavs and Dutch to the east of the old town. All add to the flavour of the place, yet none of these has such an influence on Berlin’s character as its soldiers. Right now they are a hundred miles away, marching to Frederick’s order, but in peacetime up to twenty thousand might be found quartered throughout the city. It is why Berlin is a city of whores. But while the soldiers are away, the landlords must find other lodgers, the girls other sweethearts.

I stop at the north end of Fischerstrasse, looking down that long, narrow street. The facing rows of tall, four-storey houses seem to lean in towards each other, soot dark and close enough to touch, their wood-framed windows opened outwards. It’s a shabby, grimy place and its inhabitants dress to match. I have a gut instinct that they’re here, but I could be wrong. They could be anywhere. But then, why head south from the Schloss? If they were looking for a place to the east of the city, they would have carried on along the Konigstrasse, out past the town hall and the police headquarters.

Mind, they could be heading towards the Kietz …

I need to be careful now. For all I know one of them is keeping look-out, trying to spot me before I can spot them. It’s cat and mouse. And there’s the problem of where to stable my horse.

I smile, knowing suddenly what to do. If I find where they’ve stabled their horses, then I’ll find them.

It takes me half an hour, but the time’s well spent. They’re here in Colln, or not far away. Until they can operate on Gruber, they’ll need their horses, just in case they have to make a quick escape. There’s no quicker way of travelling in these times.

Having stabled my own horse, I call the ostler to me and, slipping him a few coins, tell him I’m one of Frederick’s spies, working for the Marquis D’Argens, and that I’m trailing the four who came in earlier.

Like everyone, he knows D’Argens by reputation, and the mere mention of the name is enough to persuade him to help me. He takes me over to the stall where their horses are and, as I walk about them, he tells me what he knows.

The big man, Nemtsov, appears to be their spokesman. It was he who paid the ostler, he who gave instructions concerning the horses. The other three were silent, the ‘priest’ eerily so.

‘I knew,’ he says, with a self-satisfied smirk. ‘I just knew they were up to no good.’

I notice blood on one of the saddles – Gruber’s blood, no doubt – and turn and ask the man if one of them seemed hurt.

He shrugs. ‘Maybe.’

But I know he doesn’t know, and that worries me a little, because Gruber would be hurting by now, and it
would
show.

I leave the stables and move swiftly down the street. They could be anywhere in the vicinity, but there are ways of narrowing down the search.

In these days before advanced communications, everyone seems interested in everyone else’s business. I walk across and, doffing my hat and bowing, greet them.

‘Ladies. I’m looking for some friends.’

There are giggles and blushes, but one of them, more forward than the others, meets my eyes, a flirting smile on her lips.

‘And what would these friends of yours be like, master?’

She’s a working girl, up early for her kind, and from her clothes I’d judge she’s far from Berlin’s finest.

‘Four men,’ I answer her. ‘A big man and a priest. A small, dapper little fellow, and one other. Young. Dark-haired.’

There’s a moment’s consultation, and then the girl puts out her hand. I smile and place a silver thaler in it – a real one, not one of Frederick’s debased ‘ephraims’.

She stares at it round-eyed, then looks back at me and grins. ‘Are you sure these friends of yours can’t wait an hour? That is, if you’ve another like this.’

But I am not tempted. I want Gruber, and I need to find him soon.

‘Another time,’ I say, and smile back at her pleasantly.

‘A shame,’ she says, ‘for you look like a fine gentleman.’

‘And no clap-ridden soldier!’ remarks one of the others, and they all begin to giggle once more.

‘Well?’ I ask. ‘Am I to know where my friends are lodged?’

In answer she smiles and turns and puts her arm out, like an actress on the stage. ‘Right here,’ she says, ‘on the third floor, above old Schmidt.’

And even as I look up at the window, I see one of them – the bald one – and know that I’ve been spotted.

The girl’s smile changes to shocked surprise as I push past her, drawing my gun. The stairs are inside, to the right of Schmidt’s stall, and as I hurry up them I can hear urgent voices coming from above.

But even as I turn on to the first-floor landing, there is a familiar hiss of air behind me and I whirl about to find Nemtsov there on the steps below. He raises his gun, but I’m much quicker than him. The beam catches him through the temple and he falls back with a cry.

I turn back in time to see the priest’s bald head duck back from the landing above. I hear the soft thud of a grenade drop on the stairs close by and, without thought, throw myself at the door to my right. It gives, and I am halfway across the room when the thing explodes.