The Lightstep (10 page)

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 that 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.

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.

'Paid mob,' muttered Heiss. 'All the signs of it, I'd say. And
they've spent half of it on drink already.'

'If they see us, it could be ugly.'

'Best be ready to move smartly when they come our way.'
At the centre of the crowd the coffin moved. It moved like
one of the medieval relics that the guilds brought out of their
chapels on a saint's day to parade through the streets. The crowd
gathered around it, following reverently as if the thing was sacred
indeed. Many had removed their hats.

They have killed their King,
thought Wéry suddenly.
On the cross.
They nailed him.

And that was Albrecht in there, in that box. It seemed to Wéry
an obscenity that Albrecht, of all men, should be the one they
used to make their point. The living man had been worth so
much. Why should his remains be surrounded with this mock
pomp and the artificial extravagances of grief?

The coffin moved, at the pace of the holy, and paused at the
water's edge. There were men standing in the barge, reaching to
lift it down. There it went, safely, silently onto the deck. The
shadows of the quay seemed to push slowly out into the river as
the barge parted from the bank. A streak of water opened
between it and the quay, and the barge was out into the stream,
drifting down towards the bridges. On the wharf the mob
crowded to the very edge.

'Adelsheim!' called several voices. 'God bless Adelsheim!'

But further back, at the edges of the crowd, others called,
'Down with the Warmongers!'And,'Give us back our children!'

They were following the barge along the bank. Some were
running ahead to the Old Bridge to take up position there. Feet
sounded, hurrying down the cobbles, coming closer. The clamour
of the crowd was growing.

In a moment they would think of the New Bridge, too.

The barge emerged silently from the middle arch of the Old
Bridge, folding its oars for long seconds to pass between the
pillars of stone. Above it men crowded and yelled at the parapet.
One had climbed up and was standing balanced there, waving his
arms like a mad black clown. The barge came on. Feet were
running again on the waterside, keeping pace with it, down
towards the New Bridge where the officers waited.

'Bishop! Hey, Bishop! Give us back our children!'

'They're coming!' gasped Heiss.

'Stand fast,' said Balcke.

Wéry clenched his teeth. There were figures at the end of the
bridge, approaching.

'You!' cried a drunken voice suddenly. 'You there! What are
you doing?'

'Steady,' said Balcke.

Balcke and Fernhausen were at the parapet, ignoring the mob.
They had thrown their coats back, and their white uniforms
gleamed clearly in the dusk. The barge was coming on, holding
its position to shoot the second bridge. Wéry could see the shapes
upon it – the steersman, standing clear at the stern; the heads and
shoulders of oarsmen; a small group of people in the centre of the
barge, around a long shape that must have been the coffin itself.

'Now,' said Balcke, and lifted his hand in a slow salute.
Fernhausen bent outwards over the parapet. What seemed to be
a large glove or gauntlet dangled from his fingers.

'You!' yelled the drunken voice, approaching along the bridge.
'You! Stand! And say your business!'

'They are – ah – rather close,' murmured Uhnen in his ear.
'Shouldn't we . . . ?'

'Wait,' said Wéry, tightly. His eyes were on the river, but his ears
were following the footfalls coming along the bridge. Not yet,
not yet. The longer they could delay it . . .

'Hey! You!' said the voice, a few paces from his ear.

'Wéry!' hissed Uhnen. 'Shouldn't we . . . ?'

'Yes. Now.'

Hand to hilt. Metal rasping in the night. The curved blade,
heavy before him, pointed along the bridge at the shadow-men
advancing!

'Stay back, there!' he cried.

'Stay back!' echoed Uhnen, also with his sword drawn.

'Ho there! Help here! Help!' The voice was louder still, full of
rage and the lust for a fight. More feet came running. As yet there
were only a handful of men on the bridge, but in a moment . . .

'The infantry will retire,' said Balcke calmly. Fernhausen was
already turning away from the parapet. His hands were empty.
Whatever he was holding had been dropped into the barge, still
passing under the arch. Balcke placed his arm on Heiss's shoulder
and began to lumber back towards the Saint Emil side.

Damn!
thought Wéry.
That leg!

He should have thought of it. That leg, and the swift-footed
mob on their heels! Why hadn't he foreseen this?

How the devil were they going to get out of here?

Von Uhnen was gone. Wéry was on his own. The approaching
men were desperately close.

He drew himself up to his full height. 'Keep your distance!' he
cried.

'You bastard!' a figure screamed at him. 'You murderer!'

Beyond them, shapes and figures hurried on down the quay,
yelling and calling after the barge. And at his back he could hear
the slow clump, clump of Balcke's leg, still too near – much too
near. He could hear the gasp of the Count's breath. Where was
that damned coach?

'Keep back!' he roared again.

'Ho there,' called a voice from the far bank. 'On the bridge!
On the bridge!'

'Wéry!' That was Uhnen, from somewhere behind him. He
could not look round. The men were sidling closer. Three of
them, and another close behind. Cudgels. He could not see their
faces. They were enslaved minds, not men but guildsmen, and he
cursed them.

'The first one dies!' he bellowed, pointing his sword. 'The first
one!'

(Clump, clump, clump, receding. And the rattle of a coach wheel
on the Saint Emil wharf. Not yet, not yet . . .)

Glances shot between the men. 'Get him!' cried one.

But none of them wanted to be the first. Behind them other
men had stooped to prise up cobbles. That was the danger.

'Wéry!' (Von Uhnen again, close behind him now.)

'Back,' muttered Wéry. 'Step by step . . .'

Swords drawn, facing their enemy, the two hussars retreated
across the bridge. Stones flew at them out of the night. One
struck Wéry on his left shoulder. He barely felt it. A voice was
yelling
Come on! Come on!
But whether it was calling to him or
to the crowd he did not know. Behind him he could hear the
steady plod-plod of the wooden leg; and the rising noise of
hooves and wheels approaching across the square.

'Hey, Wéry! Uhnen! Smartly, now!'

'Run!' said Wéry. He turned and bolted. Ahead of him Uhnen
was running, too. Cries pursued them. There was a coach wheeling
slowly in the space before the coffee house. Heiss was helping
Balcke inside. Von Uhnen was almost there. Wéry fled for his life
across the short cobbled space and gained the door. He grasped
it, stepped up, and swayed, because the coach was still moving. A
few paces away, men emerging from the coffee house had paused
to watch, as if pursuers and pursued were a gang of street-artists
performing in the hope of a casual gulden or two.

Hands reached and pulled him inwards. He tumbled over
white-uniformed knees and heard someone swear.

'Mind that sword!'

'All right! I've got it. Now drive, Peter! Drive!'

Wéry fought his way to a seat in the corner. Von Uhnen was
struggling in to a place opposite him. A whip cracked. The
carriage was picking up pace – to a fast walk, to a trot. Wéry
twisted to look out through the small window. A man was
running alongside the coach, gasping, cursing. For an instant, in
the gleam of some lamp, Wéry saw his face – narrow and dark
and twisted, looking up at him with the mouth open and a mad
gleam of white around the eyes. He was dressed like a journeyman,
with a battered hat jammed down over a sparse fringe of
hair. 'You bastard!' he screamed up at Wéry. 'Come back!' He was
trying to gain the carriage step. Wéry braced himself for a punch.
But the carriage was faster. The man was falling away, still running
wildly, howling after them, losing ground. The horses broke into
a canter. The pursuit was lost in the darkness.

In the river beyond, the barge was a hundred paces downstream.
Most of the mob was still on the far bank. They had
begun to gather around a large, stone building on the waterfront.
Clear above the babble Wéry heard the breaking of glass. He
drew his head in.

'We're away,' he said. 'But they've started to attack the custom
house.'

'Drink in their bellies and Rother's gold in their pockets,' said
Heiss. 'They weren't going to go home without having some fun
first. Damn, but that was well done, Wéry. They'd be playing cat's
cradle with our guts now, if you hadn't been the rearguard.'

Balcke said nothing.

'It was – a little exciting,' said Uhnen. 'I'm glad I was part of
it. What was it you let fall, Fernhausen?'

'The Prince's glove,' said Fernhausen, in the same affected
drawl he had used in the coffee house. 'From his right hand.
Because the army is his right hand, you see. I saw an oarsman pick
it up, so it landed well enough. That was the only thing I was
worried about.'

'Will they know what it is?'

'Maybe, maybe not. We'll put it about, as soon as we can. That
will wipe the smirk off Rother's face, won't it? He wanted someone
to end up looking a fool, and it's going to be him.'

'Clever!'

'Not bad, as it has turned out. I must say I had my doubts
when Wéry first suggested it. But we were all in a flummox up at
the palace, and the Prince declaring that if we didn't come up
with something by noon he would have the troops clear the
wharfs after all. And
that
would have been delightful, wouldn't it?'

'Wéry suggested it?' said Uhnen, looking at him in surprise.

Wéry shrugged.

'So,' said Uhnen. 'Not only Virgil, but Ulysses too! And
Horatius on the bridge. Truly, my friend, I had no notion.'

'I want to stop at the bend,' said Balcke.

Heiss relayed the instructions to the driver. The coach slowed
as it began to follow the long, looping road that wound up
towards the gates of the citadel, and to the Celesterburg palace.
At the first turning, it halted. They clambered out.

The road was unlit. They stood part-way up a shadowed hillside,
in the living night air. Above them the crags rose and rose to
the walls of the citadel and the Celesterburg, gleaming with
lights. Below them was the mass of the city, with more lights in
its squares and on street corners. From somewhere faint strains of
music rose to their ears. The black bars of the bridges stood out
clearly against the pale river, but it was too far to see if anyone
was moving down there now. The river wandered away to the
south, between dark banks. A long cannon-shot downstream
there was a speck drifting on its pale surface. The barge.

'Well, there he goes,' said Balcke. 'Carrying our sins with him.'

There was something regretful in his voice, as if the cart of his
personality had checked its career for once and, against all natural
laws, had rolled a little back up the hill to look at something it
had run over. It was strange, too, thought Wéry, that he had
stopped the carriage here for one more look, after all he
had risked for his salute on the bridge. It was not like him.

It had been Balcke's order that had sent Albrecht and his men
into the cannon fire. Maybe it was not just for his precious army
and its honour that the Count had gone down to the bridge this
night.

But halting the carriage had given Wéry a chance that he
would not otherwise have had – a chance to say a last goodbye
himself. And he could linger over it. There had not been time on
the bridge. There was time now, in the cool air of the hillside,
looking at the diminishing barge and thinking, Goodbye, goodbye.
He tried to remember the man as he should be remembered.
The face and the laughter and the friendship –
'Hey, Michel, have
you ever looked at somebody?' –
why was it so hard to recall them,
as the eye fought to keep that dwindling black point in view on
the dull surface of the river? He tried to rebuild the face in his
mind – those mocking eyes, the fluid lips and teeth – and the man
behind it, who had spoken truth in the disguise of a clown.
'Hey,
Michel . .
.' '
Hey, Michel . .
.' Was he gone already? No, there he
was still. Just.