The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  And she was not winning. She knew she was the better player, and that in the long run she would come out ahead of Karl. But the game turned on luck and now, just when she needed it, the luck was not good. The hands held no promise. She must throw away cards that were valuable and the cards she drew were not the ones she wanted. The score was mounting. The Rhine was getting further away. And still she smiled brightly and flashed her eyes at him and kept up the little bouts of banter, while she waited for the luck to change.

  Another hand ended. She looked up. She saw Karl watching her. And she saw what she was doing to him.

  His mild brown eyes were fixed on her. They were pleading with her, just as they had last summer in the orangery at Effenpanz when he had gone down on his knees to her on the blue-arid-white tiled floor.' You must allow me to say this . . . I adore you, Maria. I cannot think of anything else. Sometimes I do not even remember to eat . . .' It had been painful to hear him. It was painful to see him now. His feelings had not changed. Why in Heaven had she expected them to? And because she was flirting with him, he was beginning to hope once more. In a moment, in a murmur, he would tell her so.

  Oh, there would be no need to approach Mother to fund her losses to Karl. (Losses! There, she had thought it now. Adieu, the Rhine!) He would allow her all the time she asked for to pay her debt. He would never mention it. He would carry it all his life, if she allowed it, and absolve her of it on his deathbed. It would always be there between them, like the words she had spoken at Effenpanz. And in his eyes the nobility with which he endured it would only strengthen his right to her. It would be a reproach to her, a final, unanswerable argument why she should turn to him at last.

  How could she have been so blind?

  He had caught her look. He was leaning forward. She dropped her eyes.

  'May I say something?' he said, in a low voice.

  'Not yet,' she said, holding up her hand and looking hard at her cards.

  A weak pretence. She had won herself only seconds. In an instant she must look up again, and he would speak.

  And then rescue came. Father woke on the settee. He heaved himself upright and looked around, making a slight grumbling noise in his throat like a sleepy, embroidered bear. His eyes wandered dully around the room, absorbing the lights, the servants, the party of women. He had no memory of the gathering. He was wondering what they were all doing here.

  He saw her, and his face split into a beam of childish pleasure.

  It warmed her like the sun, that smile. It told her, whatever she did and whoever she disappointed, that the biggest, kindest and most important man left in her life loved her, and was pleased that she was near.

  Then he saw what she was doing.

  'Cards!' he said.

  'It is piquet, Father,' she said. 'Do you wish to play? If so, you must take my hand. I am losing; you must come to my aid.'

  Karl von Uhnen looked startled. She smiled a hostess's smile that fixed him in his seat, and rose smoothly to let her father lever himself into her place.

  'The gentleman is a very good player, Father,' she murmured.

  'Is he? So, so. My major?'

  'You are minor, father. And the gentleman approaches his hundred.'

  'Ah.'

  Dutifully, Karl picked up his cards. If the woman he adored required him to play with her demented father, then he would play, whatever came of it. She saw him glance across, and register that the old gentleman could at least still hold his hand straight. Then he looked up expectantly at her, standing behind her father's chair. Perhaps he thought she would give the old man hints. She would do nothing of the kind.

  It only needed the luck to change. If it was set on dogging Maria all evening, might it not smile on Father instead? Of course there was no reason why it should. But Luck and Reason were enemies after all . . .

  Karl exchanged only four cards. Father took the remaining four. They went through the declarations, Father rumbling his answers, 'Not good . . . Good . . . Not good . . .' and proceeded to the play. Maria watched Karl's face as the tricks fell. She saw him understand that, addled or not, there was still a part of his host's mind that knew the game.

  Indeed he knew. He brooded over his cards like Jove looking down from Olympus. His eyes never left them, even when he spoke. His big fingers moved as if of their own will, playing the cards flick, flick, flick with barely a pause between. And his score lengthened, and the tricks lined up before him. Maria let her fingers rest upon his shoulder, and watched.

  And she loved him. She loved to see him like this, with his mind ruling the things that it could still rule. He had woken when she needed him, like some ancient knight from an enchanted sleep in a cave. And although so much had been lost, and so much had turned to bitterness, he was still her champion – a champion she had almost forgotten – ready to rise and do battle for her in a world that was altogether changed.

  An hour later Uhnen's face was white. He had won just one game to Father's five. His fingers shook slightly as he added up the score. At a gulden a point, that made . . .

  In the room beyond the double doors a muffled chatter arose. A chair was pushed back. Someone in there laughed – a high, giggling sound.

  'Father,' Maria said, putting her hand under his arm. 'They are coming out. We must be ready to lead them into dinner.'

  Father rose laboriously to his feet. Karl rose too. 'This has been – most instructive,' he said, with a rueful look at the score. 'I fear I must give you a note in hand for this, sir. But I shall gladly bring it tomorrow . . .'

  'You may bring it to me,' murmured Maria. She did not feel triumphant. If anything she felt a little ashamed. But she had her drawing-room victory. Now the orders would indeed be given, the servants would scurry, the wheels of a carriage would roll, because the Uhnen family would bear the costs of her trip to the Rhine.

  Karl leaned forward and spoke in a low voice. 'I shall do that gladly. And perhaps when I come, I may be permitted some time to speak with you alone?'

  There was an earnest look in his eyes. Her heart sank.

  'That may depend upon what you wish to say,' she said, so softly that he could barely have heard her.

  He hesitated. 'I must speak as my heart dictates,' he said.

  'And so must I. But I can offer you no change.'

  His jaw tightened. Abruptly he looked at his shoes.

  Father had already forgotten the game. His eyes were roving the room. He was seeing it all again as new – the ladies, the lights, the footmen, the sudden crowd of brightly-clad gentlemen now debouching through the double doors into the room, chattering and tittering at their own wit. He looked lost, lost in his own house.

  'Are we going down, boy?' he asked suddenly, speaking from the corner of his mouth. 'Are we going down?'

  'I – I pray not, sir,' said Karl, and his voice was hoarse.

  'Pray then,' growled Father. 'Pray.' He fixed his eyes on the carpet. 'Damn if I didn't see her last night, all in her long gown and the head of a dog where her face should have been . . .'

  Karl too was looking at the carpet, and in the candlelight his eye shimmered with moisture. And Maria cursed herself bitterly.

  For she knew she had given him hope, and then she had cheated him. She felt that she could weep too – for him, for herself, and above all for Father and for the brief glow that had lit his mind and was gone.

  XVI

  A Word

  'Aux amies, citoyens,' said Wéry boldly, as he marched into his office.

  Asmus, the new clerk, looked up from the one desk they had to share.

  'Guerre aux chateaux!' he replied.

  'Paix aux chaumières' trumpeted Wéry, and flung his coat into a corner.

  'Et sois mon frère, ou je te tue,' said Asmus wryly, gathering his papers and rising from his place. 'I like that one especially, citizen.'

  'Thank you, citizen,' said Wéry. He picked his hussar's cap off a dusty shelf and balanced it on his head. Ponderously he took his seat. 'Now,
Asmus, I am uniformed, at my desk, in my barracks. I am an officer of the Prince and of the Empire once more. And so?'

  'For God and Emperor, sir!' 'The Divine Order! And shall we yield the Rhineland?'

  'The integrity of the German body must be maintained!' cried Asmus, raising a defiant fist to the ceiling.

  'Exactly. We may shout for revolution, but we fight for integrity and order. That is our contradiction. And underlying our contradiction is the deeper truth, from which all things spring. And it is?'

  'You said it was "Fuck the French", sir.'

  Wéry's brow furrowed. 'I thought we decided that was too broad. Was it not to be "A Plague on Paris" or "Damn the Directory"?'

  'You said, sir, that "Damn the Directory" was insufficiently poetic.'

  'You are right. I did,' Wéry sighed. 'Even to be a poet, one has to lie a little.'

  Asmus was a young man, with long, brown hair so thin that the white of his scalp showed through it. He was capable, spoke some French and had a dry sense of humour that made working with him a pleasure. He had not seemed to mind being taken for days at a time from his prestigious and presumably lucrative work in the First Minister's offices. Best of all, he could think. He had opinions on philosophy, politics and the personalities of Erzberg, and was more than ready to share them.

  It was he, for example, who had finally explained to Wéry that the Countess Wilhelmina Pancak-Schönberg (whom everyone called simply 'the Countess') was not only the Prince-Bishop's mistress but also his aunt. Wéry had been wondering why his fellow officers would joke freely in his hearing about the Countess's fondness for young women but would fall quickly silent if he referred to her relations with the Prince. Now at last he understood. Incest as well as fornication! It was too much for Erzberg to admit to the outsider.

  Wéry had warmed to Asmus from that moment. He had warmed further when he found that Asmus was willing to take part in some of the joke-rituals that Albrecht von Adelsheim had invented, such as the 'Slogans of Contradiction', in which the participants shouted the rallying-cries of opposite sides with increasing fervour. Altogether he was far more valuable than any promotion. The only sadness was that he might soon be withdrawn because Wéry had, after all, so little for him to do.

  'You had better make the most of him while you can,' Fernhausen had said ruefully. 'Gianovi nearly had a fit when he heard we were after the fellow. He may even try to raise it with the Prince.' It had sounded, then, as if Asmus's recall might arrive any day. But September had given way to October and still Asmus came down to the barracks twice a week to take his place in Wéry's office. Perhaps Gianovi's influence had declined. Indeed it must have done if his notoriously busy staff could be depleted for the sake of an intelligence officer who struggled to gather any intelligence!

  'How was the mission, sir?'

  Wéry sighed again. 'Kranz is dead. French dragoons did it.'

  'Oh!'

  Asmus was shocked. His hand made a curious movement, searching the air behind him. It was reaching for a chair for his body to sink into. But there was no spare chair in the office, which had only recently had to accommodate two men rather than one.

  'Because he worked for us, sir?'

  'No knowing. Robbery, grudge, assassination – it could have been any or all. The others are all right. Of course they are scared now, which means they will be less likely than ever to stick their necks out because we ask it.'

  'I see.' Asmus thought for a moment more. 'And is there news?'

  That was the question. That was what every man in Erzberg, from the Prince downwards, wanted to know. And Erzberg would pass quickly enough over the loss of a hired man, so long as there was news. Wéry had done the same himself, in those moments after he had seen the cold-hearted puff of pistol smoke across the valley. It was just that he knew now what the news amounted to.

  'Not much. Comings and goings. If anything, there's been a slight reduction in the strength at Wetzlar – another demi-brigade posted back across the Rhine. They still have plenty of force if they want to move. There's no sign of an increase in supplies, but that doesn't mean anything because we know the French don't believe in supplies when they are in a hurry. They will need more artillery but otherwise they can come and get us when they want.'

  Asmus had drawn pen and paper to himself across the desk, but his nib did not touch the sheet. He looked up, 'So – no change?'

  'Dress it up to make it look as though we've been busy. We have been busy, after all. But yes, that's the message.'

  'Who is the source?'

  Wéry hesitated. If he let it be known that he had been skulking around Wetzlar himself, scratching on doors and whistling at windows, there would be another difficult interview with Bergesrode. Just the thought of it made him feel tired.

  'For the purposes of the report, you say that Kranz told it to me while he was dying in my arms.'

  'You want me to say that he is dead?'

  'Yes, of course.'

  'If I do, the Treasury will cut his pay from our funds.'

  Wéry groaned. (Erzberg, Erzberg! Lose a man but keep the money. And pocket it if you can! But Asmus was right. That was exactly how the palace functionaries thought.)

  'He's dead in the Prince's service. Let him have a line of ink.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Now, what's been happening here?'

  Asmus shrugged. 'There have been more demands from the French about the d'Erles party.'

  'Telling us the émigrés have got to leave, and the walls must be blown up, and if we don't do it ourselves they will come and do it for us?'

  'Exactly. I must say . . .' Asmus was fiddling with his pen in a rare sign of agitation. 'I cannot understand why His Highness does not just send d'Erles away! Can it really be that the Countess is so fond of this wastrel?'

  'That's up to His Highness,' said Wéry. 'If there's a fight, we fight. That's all.'

  'Yes, indeed. But . . .'

  But Asmus was right. Whether out of love for his godchild, devotion to his mistress or loathing for the Republic, the Prince was playing a terrible gamble with his state.

  'What does the Chapter say?'

  Asmus glanced out of the window in the direction of the cathedral. The light was going early today.

  'They were to meet this evening,' he said. 'Very soon, now, I imagine. Many of them are against him. Perhaps most. And there's an extraordinary meeting of the Estates tomorrow.'

  'Maybe they will haul His Highness back.'

  'Maybe.'

  Maybe, maybe. But they did not know. No one knew. Would the French move now? Would they wait until spring? Would they do nothing but threaten? Wéry was the only one who could tell them. And at present he could not. His agents in Nassau were frightened and resentful. All they wanted to do was hibernate. That only left the Rhine, if anything useful could be gathered there. And if the messages could get through.

  'Did that passport go to the address I gave you?' he asked.

  Asmus looked at him.

  'Yes.'

  'There was no trouble about it?'

  'None yet, sir.'

  'Good.'

  If she kept her promise. How long? Perhaps a man was already on his way to the Jürichs. Would there be something waiting for him? Probably not, because they would not expect him. So they would have to keep him there, or send one of their own when they did have something. How long then? No knowing.

  Damn it, again he did not know!

  'The War Commission has appointed the panel to investigate Count Balcke-Horneswerden,' said Asmus.

  'Have they?'

  He had not told Asmus there was a link between the passport and the investigation. Asmus must have guessed. But he had asked no questions yet.

  'They are Steinau-Zoll, the Canon Inquisitor, Canon Rother-Konisrat, and the Knight von Uhnen.'

  'Ho,' said Wéry thoughtfully.

  So Balcke-Horneswerden was to be investigated by one clever man from the Ingolstadt set, one clever man from the
peace party – its leader in fact – and the mercurial Uhnen, whose son might be a hussar, but 'who could not safely be associated with any faction. They would be armed with hindsight, knowing that the action at Hersheim had been useless. There had been no need to save the army, because peace had already dawned when Balcke had ordered the attack. And if that Frenchman ever appeared before them, Steinau and Rother at least would be happy to take his word over Balcke's. That might be enough to tie the noose.

  Wéry shifted uncomfortably. He did not like to think he might be responsible for Balcke's dismissal. Balcke had helped him in the past. There was no denying that. And if the French came in force, Erzberg would need Balcke a thousand times over.

  The sooner they got news of the French advance, the better then! There would be no time for inquiries after that. And no place for a French witness either! Damn it . . .

  'Take the seat,' he grumbled. 'I'm getting changed.'

  He retreated into his narrow bedroom, got rid of his mud spattered civilian disguise, and pulled on his hussar's tunic and trousers. His thoughts would not leave him alone.

  The Chapter was meeting this evening. Perhaps it had already begun. He tried to picture the Prince and the Canons – including Canons Rother and Steinau – all speaking in those soft voices of war. The Prince was relying on the reports Wéry had given him.

  There had been nothing new for weeks! Back in the office the light was going fast. He stalked around the room, ignoring Asmus, who was busy at the desk inventing who-knew-what to justify both their salaries. On the wall the white eyes of the dying Christ rolled grotesquely in the gloom.

  He peered out of the window at the gathering evening, and tried to decide whether the barracks should be another strong point in his plan for the defence of the city. It had thick walls, and a good open square where troops could be ordered or stores piled. But it was overlooked by the onion-dome of the Saint Lucia church. Any defence would have to hold the church as well. And if the church was a strong point, why bother with the barracks? Manpower would be limited, after all.