The Lightstep (40 page)

'My dear – I cannot meet him. You understand that.'

'You will not, I promise. You and I will dine alone. Say you
will, please, Anna. For I do not know when I shall see you again.'

'Of course,' said the older woman. There was a hoarseness in
her voice and a shimmer in her eye. 'My dear, of course.'

So her plan to invite Michel Wéry to dinner was discarded, at
least for one night. And instead she played hostess to Anna, who
came sober-faced to her rooms in the palace at seven in the
evening. With her came servants from the house in the Saint Emil
quarter, carrying a trunk of Maria's things, and Pirenne, her own
French maid, to look after her. Maria hugged them all, and
thanked them, and the servants blessed her gruffly and went back
down to the coach with instructions to return for Anna in the
morning. Then she led Anna into the room opposite, where footmen
of the palace waited with the furniture cleared and a table
laid, and they sat together at the meal that Maria had intended to
share with another.

Maria was gay. Some of her gaiety was natural, out of the
lingering abandon that came from declaring herself to be a fallen
woman. But some of it was an act because that was how she
supposed a fallen woman might be expected to behave.
She realized that if Pirenne stayed she would not be able to keep
up her pretence for long. But that did not matter. All that
mattered was that Anna should believe, for the next few hours,
that there was nothing left to save or to chaperon in the woman
who had once been her charge. Out of respect for Anna's feelings
she did not mention her supposed lover once. But absorbed as she
was with matters of the siege, she could not help speaking of
things that she could only have learned from him.

'There is just one company of regulars left in the town,' she
said. 'That is the depot company of the Erzberg battalion, here in
the citadel. The walls are held by a mix of the country militias
and the volunteers supplied from the guilds.'

'Really?' said Anna politely.

'The countrymen are the more reliable soldiers, I am told,' said
Maria. 'That is because they do not think as quickly as the townsmen.

And also the townsmen have not been friendly towards the
army this last year. But the townsmen will be fighting for their
homes and their churches, so we warrant that they will show
spirit enough.'

'I am sure, my dear.'

'But it was so wrong of Mother,' she exclaimed,'to turn those
men around when in truth they need everyone that they can have
here!'

Anna pursed her lips and looked down. Instantly Maria felt a
pang of guilt.

'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.'

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.