The Lightstep (9 page)

The Vater flowed from north to south through Erzberg. On
the eastern bank lay the medieval city, clustered around the
cathedral on its low rise. On the western, lifted above the town
on a high hill, stood the citadel and the Celesterburg palace. City
and citadel were linked by the Old Bridge, which plodded out
across the river on ancient piers of stone, bearing the traffic of the
Saint Simeon on its narrow back. A hundred and fifty yards
downstream the New Bridge crossed in bolder arches to serve the
modern Saint Emil quarter, where the houses of the rich
clustered under the shadow of the citadel.

Wéry and Uhnen hurried across the New Bridge together. To
their right, beyond the Old Bridge, they could glimpse the Saint
Christopher Chapel and the small square before its doors. There
were figures there – loitering, it seemed, with no purpose at all in
the summer evening. Some appeared to hold sticks or cudgels,
which they carried with a nonchalant air as if they were gentlemen
at croquet. It was late afternoon, and the square was in
shadow. The clothes of the watchers looked as dark as funeral
colours under the gilding sky.

The two officers crossed to a cobbled wharf. Here, standing
among the broad fronts of the Saint Emil quarter, was the Coffee
House Stocke, a solid, square building with elaborate
wall-paintings, lights in its windows and a raucous babble
indoors.

Wéry liked the Stocke. He liked it because of the people who
came here – merchants and tradesmen, craftsmen and
entertainers: outflows from the Saint Emil, the Celesterburg, the
wharfs and workshops across the water. He liked to think the
battered notice at the doorpost declaring 'All men equal under
this roof a true revolutionary sentiment, and not merely a
reaction to the strict hierarchies of the city guilds. There were
pamphlets and papers scattered on the tables; and even though
their editors all complied slavishly with the requirements of the
Prince's censors, there were often items of interest to be found in
them. And while most of the nobility (including Uhnen – to
judge by his reaction as they entered) preferred to drink and play
in the ordered calm of their clubs, it was occasionally possible to
see some thick-skinned son of an Imperial Knight here, smoking
his clay pipe within a yard of a bargee who was doing the same.

The Stocke reeked, of course. But what of that?

Inside, the air fumed with tobacco smoke. The roof-beams
were so low that both men had to stoop. The chatter was so loud
that the woman who took their fee had to shout her banal greetings
at them. Men were getting up, sidling between the tables and
the wooden partitions, going out or sitting down again. A party
of musicians were arguing over a score and making notes in the
margins. Another group, barge-captains perhaps, were playing at
cards. Over the low fire hung the coffee-pot, and before it were
clay jugs, clay pipes, a bookshelf and an unlaced boot. There was
a bible on the bookshelf, and also a row of locked frames
containing drops and powdered medicines advertised to cure
diseases of the skin, toothache, cough and pox. There was a tiny
carved wooden shrine, painted in bright blue and gold, with the
face of the Virgin smiling gently into the room.

'Hey, Wéry!' called a voice through the din. 'Over here!'

From beyond the farthest of the wooden partitions an arm
waved – a flash of white uniform. Wéry made his way through
the babble, balancing two mugs of coffee and stooping as he
went. Three faces watched him as he approached. The one who
had waved them over was Heiss, a Captain in the Dürwald
battalion and aide to the army commander, Field Marshal Count
Balcke-Horneswerden. He was a small, slightly-built little
cockerel of a man, with bristling grey hair and moustaches and
popping, bloodshot eyes, who grinned as they came up.

'How the devil are you, man? I thought you'd never make it!
God damn! Who's this? Von Uhnen?What the hell are you doing
here?'

'I . . .' began Uhnen. And he stopped.

He had seen who else was seated at the table.

Massive in the space between bench and table, like an elephant
crammed into a pigsty, was Balcke-Horneswerden himself. He
was a fat-chested giant, with bulging cheeks and a heavy jaw.
He had removed his wig, which was on the table beside his
coffee. His high, shaved head narrowed at the crown like the
point of a pear. His eyes were black and his face red from
the warmth of the room. He glowered at the newcomers as if
they were late on parade, and poorly turned out at that.

This was the senior field officer of the small Erzberg army, a
Knight himself, and a drinking companion of the Prince. The
court of Erzberg, which delighted in wit and classical allusions,
nicknamed him 'The Colossus', because of his great size and
because a French cannon-ball had left one of his legs forever
planted in the soil on the west bank of the Rhine. But to his men,
from the lesser colonels down to the cursing infantrymen, he was
'Old Blinkers', who looked neither right nor left but went
straight up the middle.

And the man beside him . . .

Adhelmar Fernhausen-Loos was a young, wan-looking
aristocrat with lazy eyes. A thin smile draped itself across his face
as he lifted one hand in greeting to Uhnen.
Yes, it's me,
his
expression seemed to say.
Droll, isn't it?

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-ridden 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.