The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  Wéry shook his head. He had helped to organize a revolution himself, in Brabant. He had walked in Paris in the heady days of '92, and early '93 when Louis XVI had gone to the guillotine. Not once had he come across any sign that anyone professing to be an Illuminatus (or freemason or Martinist or Rosicrucian, for that matter) had secretly steered events to their conclusion. Not once had he even thought of them, until he had come to take service in the Empire where the vast and fearful Catholic Church still held sway, peering at the signs of its destruction and seeking its enemies in the shadows.

  Control the Revolution? No one had controlled it at all. That was how it had become what it had become.

  And in any case, how was he, a foreigner and barely a gentleman, to penetrate the political salons and lodges of Erzberg and learn their secrets?

  'The French messengers that came yesterday went into the city too,' said Bergesrode. 'We know one of them called at a house in the Saint Emil quarter. That's where this story about Balcke will have come from. And this morning a crowd pelted the coach of one of the d'Erles party . . .'

  'Do you think it's true, that story about Balcke?'

  'Weren't you there?'

  'Not at the action itself.'

  'That may be very lucky for you. If it is true, Balcke is finished and so is anyone who was with him. We will find out. At the same time we will stop this leakage into and out of the city. It is ridiculous that French messengers can come and go where they please before we are aware of it. From now on, passports will only be issued or countersigned by the Prince's office or by the First Minister. The Prince has signed a decree to that effect. Stop a moment.'

  They stood under the shadow of the Celesterburg arch, looking in to the courtyard. Half-way across the cobbles the Prince was making his way slowly towards the palace steps, now surrounded by a small crowd of notables vying for his attention.

  'Best we do not let too many people see us talking,' murmured Bergesrode. 'He doesn't want it known that we are consulting the army at present.'

  'I need passports for myself and my couriers. How am I to get them if . . .'

  'Come and see me when you need them.'

  'Your antechamber is too damned crowded . . .'

  'That is blasphemy, Wéry'

  '. . . Whenever I go up there, I find half of Erzberg waiting for you or the Prince. And they can hear every word we say!'

  'You don't come early enough. Come at dawn. I'll give you a pass for the side door.' He caught Wéry's look. 'Oh we'll be there. Don't worry. But come ready to talk about the Illuminati. Also, I want to know more about these ideas of yours.'

  'Which ones?'

  'What you said out there, on the bastion. He liked that.'

  Wéry stared at him. 'You think he would do it?'

  'That's as may be.'

  'Didn't he decide it was impossible?'

  'The only thing he will have decided this morning will be that he has even fewer competent officers than he thought he had. And the only thing we can be sure of is that if the French come, it will not be that fool Knuds who will be commanding in the citadel! Nothing else is certain. That's why your work matters. And your ideas.'

  With a nod of dismissal, he set out across the palace courtyard. His black robes blew around him as he hurried in the wake of his master.

  XII

  In the Barrack Room

  The colonels had dispersed by the time Wéry returned to the commandant's house. So he took his leave of Knuds and departed from the citadel on foot. He walked slowly down the looping road from the citadel to the bridges. His boots roused little dry dust-clouds for the wind to fling in eddies and disperse over the hillside. His thoughts flew with them, and alighted nowhere.

  Politics!

  The nasty, little, petty-minded politics of Erzberg: Gianovi against Balcke; Canon Rother against the army; little boys in their sandcastles. Little boys with knives. Balcke is finished. That was a swift judgement. That was exactly what might be expected from someone who had not been with the army in those last days! And if there were few competent officers in the army of Erzberg, there would be one less when Balcke was gone. Wéry would be sorry. Balcke had been the first to take him seriously.

  Bergesrode would not be sorry. He was one of the Ingolstadt set, and the Ingolstadt set hated Balcke, just as they hated Gianovi and anyone they suspected of swaying the Prince towards reform of Erzberg's ancient customs and institutions. The Prince kept Bergesrode in his office as a balance to his other advisers. So the lethal bickering penetrated right to the heart of the Prince's government. Squabbling makes you smaller. And paranoia makes you smaller still. Come ready to talk about the Illuminati. Hah. Rubbish. The obsession of a sick and backward-looking church . . .

  Squabbling, and paranoia, and impossible demands. Find Illuminati in the city. Bring us the plans of Hoche. Stay out of French-held territory. (But yes, he must find a safe courier to and from the Rhine. Somehow, he must.)

  And your ideas.

  Because the French would come. Now or later, whether they evicted d'Erles or not, one day the French would come. There could be no real peace with such an enemy. His pulses beat with the thought of it.

  Ideas, ideas. His idea was to fight. To oppose the French with a will that exceeded even their own. But Bergesrode knew that. The question he was asking was: how?

  Defence had to have depth. When one line was breached, there must be another behind it, and another behind that, so that no attack could gain momentum. A serious fortress should be surrounded with lines of outworks and redoubts. But Erzberg could not be made into a fortress. That would take months, and vast sums of money. The French would be alert to it at once. They could be outside the walls in days.

  So what could be done?

  Build further lines within the walls? Pitch the fight inside the city?

  He paused on the Old Bridge, looking out across the quays. The riverside was crowded. His eye rested on the folk loading barges, wheeling barrows, passing in the street. Glances were thrown in his direction, and a few frowns, but there were no hisses for a hussar officer this morning. They did not know about Balcke and Hersheim, yet. Nor did they know that this particular hussar was pondering a murderous fight for the city. It should be written on his face, like a mark of Cain. Fighting street by street while the city burns, the women are dragged from the cellars and the children hoisted on bayonets. Yes, all that. All that would happen, here on these chattering wharves in the breezy air. Once you have made the attackers fight their way in, they will show you no mercy.

  And this was the voice of the enemy. It had been voiced in good faith – supposing Gianovi was capable of good faith – but it was the enemy nonetheless. Look at them, pity them. And for their sakes, do not oppose me. It was distraction. It was lies. The enemy offered every excuse for weakness. But truth was only truth if you were prepared to die for it.

  And, he thought, it could be done.

  They could fight for these streets. Look at the Coffee House Stocke, there. Or at this merchant's house, four-square at the end of the Old Bridge. Beneath its elaborate friezes of vines and fat cherubs, these were good stone Avails. Put loopholes in them, put oak shutters on those broad windows, and it would be a small fortress. No one could cross the river this way until it was taken.

  Look at the Saint Christopher Chapel. A cannon in its doorway could sweep the length of the wharves . . .

  It needed determination. Not fear. Fear was the corruption that had consumed the Republic: fear of émigrés, fear of the mob, fear of the Powers and fear of each other. No cause of his must go that way To do this – not just to contemplate it, but to carry it all the way through – Erzberg's leaders would be tested to the very limits of their will.

  And it needed arms, powder and shot. Level eyes and level heads. Steady hands on the muskets. The defence would show no mercy either. And when they came on, with their banners and their bayonets – Bang! Bang! Damn you, bang! And the smoke clearing and the bodies writhin
g on the cobbles. And they would have learned, in Paris. They would have learned the price of betrayal!

  His fists shook. His jaw was clenched. And he stood there, lost in his vision at the parapet of the Old Bridge, until his ear began to pick up again the clatter of the people on the wharves. The wind gusted, flapping his tunic, and his eye saw the brown swirl of the river once more.

  It could be done, he thought. That was what he would tell Bergesrode at dawn tomorrow. It could be done if there was the will. And if they came.

  He left the bridge. Moving swiftly now, he began to make his way upstream, skirting the narrow, gated street which was the city's Jewish ghetto, into the northern districts of the city. As he went he looked left and right, noting strong buildings, avenues of fire, killing grounds. There were many, he found – so many ways and places in which an attacker could be made to suffer.

  Why in heaven's name did cities bother with walls at all?

  It was in this frame of mind, intense and agitated, that he reached the Saint Lucia barracks where the hussars were quartered. He was moving so fast that he did not acknowledge the sentry's salute. He barely heard what the man had said to him. He had walked on five paces under the archway before his brain caught up with his ears.

  'What? What did you say?'

  'There's callers for you, sir.'

  'Callers?'

  'Two gentlewomen, sir.'

  Gentlewomen! What in heaven . . . ?

  'For me? You are sure?'

  'Asked for you by name, sir.'

  It must have been business of some sort. Here in Erzberg, no gentlewoman would call on an officer in his barracks for any other reason. But he could not think what business one could have with him, or indeed which, if any, of his scarce acquaintances in the city it could possibly have been.

  'Did they leave a card?'

  'They're still here.'

  Still here!

  Gentlewomen waiting in a barracks? God above, what kind of business could this be?

  'Where are they?' he asked urgently.

  'Don't exactly know, sir. Officers' quarters, I suppose.'

  They were in the long room in the officers' block: two women in brown habits with their skirts spread wide on the stained and faded settees on which the bachelor officers would lounge and drink wine in the evenings. One he recognized instantly – it was Madame Poppenstahl, whom he had last seen in the little waiting room at Adelsheim. The other wore a veil. A black dress peeped out from under her habit. It was almost certainly one of the Adelsheim women – the daughter, he guessed, from her height. But with the veil and the dim light he could not be sure.

  'And here he is,' cried Altmantz, looking up from an armchair. 'The lost sheep returns. Well, boy? Still got your commission, I hope?'

  'Fortunately, sir, yes,' gasped Wéry. 'Ladies, I am at your service. And I regret – I bitterly regret – that you have had to wait for me. If I had known, of course I would have been here at once.'

  'It is no fault of yours, sir,' said Madame Poppenstahl, as he bent over her hand. She turned, perhaps a little awkwardly, to his superior officer. 'And Baron . . .'

  The colonel raised an eyebrow. Women like Madame Poppenstahl did not normally dismiss barons who had condescended to wait upon them.

  'Baron, you have been most kind,' said the woman behind the veil. And it was indeed Maria von Adelsheim.

  'Well,' said the Baron, gallantly levering himself to his feet. 'It – it has been a pleasure, but I have matters to attend to. I'll leave him to your mercies.'

  'Sir . . .' began Wéry.

  'Think nothing of it, boy,' said Altmantz. 'Only tell me what it was about afterwards if you can. I'm all agog.'

  He left them, with the forced cheerfulness of a man who knew he was not in control of events in his house, and therefore behaved as if all events that occurred exactly suited him. The sound of his boots clattered away on the wooden boards and Wéry was alone with the two women.

  They were alone, in the room where up to a dozen young unmarried men would sit of an evening, drinking and smoking and roaring at one another. There was dust in the air, ashes in the hearth, the smell of wood smoke and tobacco smoke and spilled wine. On a sideboard stood a row of decanters, full, half-full and near-empty. The furniture was shabby. Here and there the fabrics were torn, as if by some undisciplined cat. But it was no cat that had ripped the upholstery and picked at the carpet so. They were the marks of spurs.

  'By your leave, ladies,' he said, feeling embarrassed by their surroundings, but also helpless. There was nowhere else in the barracks to take these two unexpected visitors. He perched on the edge of a settee that had been visibly deformed by generations of drunken hussars sprawling there and tipping bottles into their mouths.

  He waited. Madame Poppenstahl was preparing to speak. Wéry understood that she was to do the talking, and also that she was not quite sure how to begin. He stole a glance at the woman in the veil, but he saw there only poise and silence. The outline of the face showed dimly behind the dark material.

  What were they doing here?

  'Once again,' he said, 'I truly regret that I was not here to receive you.'

  'It is no fault of yours, sir,' said Madame Poppenstahl. 'But it was not possible for us, finding you away, to go and return tomorrow. Therefore we were obliged to wait.'

  'I see,' said Wéry, blankly.

  'We wish,' said Madame Poppenstahl, 'to acquire a passport.'

  'A passport!'

  'For a foreign gentleman to remain a month within the city. He will be travelling on private business and therefore it would be best if he had papers from our own authorities.'

  Madame Poppenstahl looked at him, as though hoping she had said all that was necessary by way of explanation.

  'But – but it is no part of my duties to issue passports,' said Wéry baffled. 'You would have to apply to . . .' He hesitated.

  There was a new decree, Bergesrode had said. He struggled to remember the details. 'I believe . . . You now have to go to the office of the Prince, or the First Minister.'

  'Alas, sir. Enquiries have already been made on our behalf in these quarters. We understand that it is impossible.'

  Were they so innocent, these women?

  'It should be perfectly possible. If the clerks in the palace have said it is not, it will only be because they were waiting for a bribe.'

  Madame Poppenstahl's hands shifted in her lap. 'Sir, Lady Adelsheim has said most strictly that we should pay no bribes to the palace officials.'

  Wéry could imagine Lady Adelsheim's opinions of the officials of Erzberg. For the most part, he shared them. He eased back a little in his chair and thought what advice he might give.

  'A family of the Adelsheims' standing . . . Perhaps you should approach Gianovi himself?'

  'Lady Adelsheim has said that we must not ask favours of Gianovi under any circumstances.'

  Really!

  'Why not?'

  'She will not have it, sir. She says . . . She has no liking for him.'

  He sensed her delicacy. The thing that would offend the knightly families of Erzberg most about Gianovi was that he was not one of them. He was a foreigner, ennobled by grace and not by birth. He owed no loyalty to any faction within Erzberg other than to the man who had employed him. And the same, at a much lesser level, was true for Wéry. There was no doubt that Lady Adelsheim would have her views on lowly and foreign-born army officers as well. If she had thought that her emissaries might approach him, she would have forbidden that too. But she had not.

  'Who is it you want a passport for?'

  'A Major Jean-Marie Lanard.'

  'An émigré, madame? I do not know him.'

  'He is an officer of the Army of the French Republic'

  'What!'

  No wonder they had not been able to get what they wanted!

  Madame Poppenstahl returned his look with a frail defiance.

  'But what you ask is most difficult,' said Wéry slowly.

>   Difficult? It was madness! Allow a revolutionary officer back into Erzberg? If there were even a possibility that the Prince would resist Hoche's demands?

  He could feel the eyes of the veiled girl on him. He did not want to disappoint her. He very much did not want to. But really, it was best to be honest.

  'I should explain . . .' he said. 'There is great alarm in the palace about the possibility that republican agitators may enter the city. I doubt if anyone less than the Prince would willingly sanction such a letter at this time.'

  'We had understood, Captain, that you had become an aide to the Prince.'

  Great heavens! They expected him to get the passport for them!

  And they were not so innocent after all, were they? Clearly they knew he was not just a hussar officer. They knew he came and went from the Prince's offices. That was why they had come to him.

  'That is accurate. But I fear that His Highness would hardly seek my advice on a matter such as this.'

  Madame Poppenstahl was disappointed, but she was not put off. Some power greater than her natural diffidence was pushing her on.

  'Truly not? I wonder if you do yourself justice, sir.' She shifted once more, awkwardly.

  And then, as if she was not quite sure whether she meant what she was saying, she went on, 'Lady Adelsheim has said we were not to offer any rewards to the palace officials . . .'

  Her voice trailed away as she saw Wéry's face change.

  He could feel the muscles in his cheeks, set like stone. He was glaring at her, and he knew it, and could not help it. And yes, she was just a plain-thinking woman, trying to play palace games that she did not know how to play. Yes, this was probably the first time she had ever offered a bribe in her life. Yes, Erzberg was riddled with corruption. Of course it was.

  But damn it! To have picked him! To think that he was as warped as they were – these princing, mincing aristocrats who thought themselves so fine and everyone else so base, and they did not see, because they could not allow themselves to see, how close on the precipice they trod!