The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  'The report's got to go up,' the city officer had kept saying. 'The palace wants it before tonight!'

  'Then we'll have to do our best in the time we have,' he had snapped. 'See here, if "Nestor" stands for Sorge himself, then "Telemachus" will be a younger man he has entertained – the younger Löhm possibly. Very good. Now what's this? You think "Cassandra" is the Lady Adelsheim? What evidence have you for that?'

  'Who else could it be, sir?'

  'If we're not sure, we don't say it.' And he had scored it out.

  He had done it quickly, and never let the man go back to it.

  And he had stayed and stayed, to keep his eye on the report until the moment it was sealed and sent hotfoot up to the palace, to make sure that the name was not reinserted.

  And so he was here struggling with his boots while his fellow officers hailed him from downstairs.

  'Hey! Wéry!'

  'Just finishing!' he answered. He looked down to check progress. 'It will have to do,' he said.

  He remembered to add 'thank you' as he hurried out of the door.

  A crowd of officers were waiting in the common room. The senior squadron leader leapt to his feet as he came into the room.

  'Right,' he said, without looking at Wéry. 'Let's go.'

  The officers began to troop out. Uhnen appeared at his elbow.

  'Where's the colonel?' asked Wéry.

  'He's been up there half the day,' said Uhnen. There was something cold about his tone. Perhaps it was just that he had not liked to be kept waiting. 'Some conference or other – no one knows what. But he sent word that he wanted a full turnout from his officers. And that we were to make sure you came too.'

  'Why?'

  'No doubt we'll be told. Come on now. You're riding in my carriage.'

  The barrack square was dark, and crowded with horses and carriages waiting to take the hussars up to the Celesterburg. They found Uhnen's and climbed in.

  'Thank you,' said Wéry as they closed the door. 'I'm grateful.'

  'There's no need,' said Uhnen. 'I wanted to talk to you.'

  Still his voice was cold – cold and distant. Wéry eased himself back in his seat and felt the leather-covered boards press against his spine. He had barely exchanged a word with Uhnen since his confinement to the barracks had begun.

  Von Uhnen waited until the coach had begun to move, following the others in a long line of carriages and gigs and barouches that snaked out of the barrack gate and down the narrow streets towards the bridges. Then he said, 'You remember some time ago you asked some of your fellow officers to choose someone from among them?'

  'Yes.'

  'I spoke with them. It will be me.'

  The carriage rocked and clattered on its way through the darkness. From the carriage immediately ahead came the sound of excited laughter. They passed a street lamp. The momentary glow through the coach window showed Uhnen's face, yellow and blank-eyed as he looked at Wéry. Then gloom took the inside of the coach again.

  'I am sorry to hear that,' said Wéry slowly.

  'Oh, I wanted to do it,' said Uhnen. 'I thought you were a good fellow. I did not believe it when they first told me about you. Then I found out that you've also allowed your name to be linked with that of a young woman whom you should never have approached or laid eyes on. That's when I realized I was wrong.'

  Wéry opened his mouth to protest. Then he shut it again.

  They'll close ranks around you, unless you give them a reason not to. Von Uhnen had a reason now.

  'And what do the other hussars think?'

  'It's none of their business. And I wouldn't try to hide behind them.'

  'I was not. But I was the aggrieved party. If there is a challenge, it should come from me.'

  'I thought you might say that. Possibly you have forgotten what was said to you in the coffee-house. If you like, I will remind you.'

  Wéry drew breath.

  'No need. If you insist, I . . . I will think about it.'

  Von Uhnen said nothing, and in the darkness between the streetlamps Wéry could not see his face. But the outline of his head and shoulders was rigid, and the air was iced with his contempt.

  'I said I would think about it!' snapped Wéry.

  'I heard what you said.'

  The rest of the journey was completed in silence.

  The Countess was receiving the guests. She was a huge, white skinned figure in a dress of shining blue silk, and her white hair was piled massively upon her crown. Maria swept low in her curtsey. She rose and smiled as she did so.

  'How wonderful you look!' cried the Countess, taking her by the hand. 'It is good to see you in your finery at last. Now my dear, surely you will dance tonight? Will you try the Lightstep for me? I remember you dance so well,'

  'I shall be delighted, Countess, if it pleases Mother.'

  'Pish!' cried Lady Adelsheim. 'One must be wary not of what one dances but whom once dances with, in my opinion. Countess, is His Highness not to join us?'

  'Oh, there is some tiresome matter that he feels he must deal with. But I count on him appearing before midnight and have told him so.'

  'Then we may be assured of it.'

  In a flicker of the Countess's eye Maria read that her mother was presuming too far. Fortunately, Franz provided a diversion. He kicked his feet sullenly and said, 'Mother, can we not go in now?'

  'Ah, and you would part me at once from my dear child,' said the Countess, still holding Maria by the arm. 'Come, my dear. You will dance with us. Of course you will.'

  'Of course, Countess.'

  The fat, white-gloved hand stroked her wrist for a moment. 'There is so much love in me,' she sighed. 'I cannot keep it for just one. I must share it with all our children.'

  'Countess,' said Mother, with one more curtsey.

  'Of course you must,' said the Countess, and with a broader smile dismissed them into the room.

  'Maria, you should not support her so,' hissed Lady Adelsheim as they made their way in among the guests.

  'Mother,' said Maria wearily. 'She treats all the young women like that. You know she does.'

  'Indeed!' huffed her mother.

  With that moment, and to her surprise, Maria began to enjoy herself. Faces turned towards her and cried out in welcome. Karl von Uhnen, in his green-and-white hussar uniform, came to beg a dance off her. Katherina Ölich and Elisabeth Machting-Altstein-Borckstein sortied from the crowd and surrounded her with exclamations, telling her that it had been far too long since she had last been out, asking about fashions in the Rhineland and insisting that she must have been in hiding for a month waiting for her dresses to be delivered.

  'Why no,' said Maria. 'I did not order a single one. But to tell you the truth, my journey was such a trial to me that I have not wished to stir abroad until now.'

  'Oh, but how selfish of you to deprive us of your company!'

  'Now, Maria, tell us. Will you dance the Lightstep? And will you be in our set?'

  'Yes, and yes!'

  'Oh – and who will you dance it for? Say it isn't for Karl von Uhnen. I shall be so jealous if it is!'

  Maria hesitated. 'As to that,' she said. 'I do not know.'

  Standing alone in the gallery, looking down on the crowd, she saw the long figure of Michel Wéry. She thought his eyes met hers, and she looked hurriedly away In the last few weeks she had begun letters to him. Sir, I have had occasion to read a speech that you gave to a certain assembly in France, and it has concerned me deeply. I wish to know . . . She had torn that one up, and begun again. Sir, I have had occasion to read a speech that you gave to a certain assembly in France, and it has concerned me deeply. I wish you to know . . . She had destroyed that one too, burning both it and its predecessor in her grate and stirring the ashes until they were truly gone.

  She did not know what it was she wished him to know. And as for what she wished to know – that he repented of his words, that he saw all the cruelty and foolishness of them, that he understood how the war h
e had called for had caused so much suffering, and the death of her brother and his friend the last and greatest of all its blows – she had no way of asking such questions.

  She could not address him at all – not on the page, not in word, not in so much as a look – without risking gossip and further confrontations at home.

  'You had better decide quickly then,' said Elisabeth. 'They are about to begin.'

  'Ah, ladies!'

  It was the First Minister, Gianovi, performing an elaborate bow over his buckled shoe. The girls bobbed obediently. 'Sir,' they said.

  'Permit me to avail myself of your beauty for a few moments,' said Gianovi. 'It would be charming for me, for once, to have my own choice of company, rather than that of every lady or gentleman who imagines that His Highness will do as they wish me to tell him to do.'

  'Why, sir,' said Elisabeth, giving him her hand. 'If you wish to escape such attentions, you must go to him and persuade him to come out himself.'

  Gianovi bowed once more. 'Again you overestimate my influence, my Lady. Although I am sure he will appear as soon as he may.'

  'And what is it that is keeping him?'

  'Ah, various things. Internal, external, a matter of justice and another of order. They all seem to gather into one at the moment.'

  'Sir,' said Elisabeth. 'You are fascinating, although I think you do not mean to be. What matters are these?'

  'Well, if you want to know the truth of it . . .' said Gianovi and knitted his brows.

  'Yes, sir? Yes?'

  'Well, I believe your best course would be to go and ask him yourself.'

  'What!'

  'Oh no, Lady Elisabeth. You should not be offended. I meant only that tonight you have a better chance of obtaining what you seek from him than I. No, do not laugh. I am absolutely earnest . . .'

  'You are a tease, sir. I declare it!'

  '. . . But it is the simplest matter for you. You see the doorway at the end of the gallery? You go down there, three, four doors to the room where you will find his secretaries. Knock at the inner door and inform His Highness that his presence is, most definitely is, required in the ballroom. What effect it will have, I do not know. But one may only hope.'

  Maria smiled. She knew quite well that her mother would number Gianovi among those that one should not be seen with. And yet his company was more enlivening than that of anyone of whom her mother might have approved. (Was it not always so?) Now this bright-eyed, bird-like Italian had Katherina Ölich giggling so hard that she was in danger of weeping tears down her powdered cheeks.

  At the same time Maria wondered at what he had said to them. He had a reputation for deviousness. Gianovi must know quite well what was delaying the Prince. He had rather skilfully diverted Elisabeth from probing too closely about it.

  'I suppose it is army matters,' Maria said. 'His Highness is forever interested in the army, is he not?'

  Gianovi shot her a look and his eyes were blank. 'Lady Maria, as to that you must ask a soldier – if you will not ask His Highness himself.'

  Again, this proposal that one or all of them should accost the Prince. But surely he was joking?

  'Oh!' cried Elisabeth in a different voice. 'Where are they all – the soldiers?'

  Maria looked around. It was true. A few minutes ago there had been scores of uniforms mingling in the crowd. Now she could see a bare half-dozen. Two or three of them were moving swiftly along the gallery, as if hurrying somewhere. Wéry was still in his place. But she looked for Karl von Uhnen, and Katherina's brother Franz Eugen, and others that she knew. They had all slipped out of sight. The only officers she could see were the very youngest, cornets and ensigns, standing out like a handful of saplings in a copse that had been cleared of mature wood.

  'I wonder if something is happening,' murmured Elisabeth.

  At that moment a liveried footman banged three times on the floor with a great rod and, as the babble subsided, announced the Lightstep. The crowd began to part to clear spaces for the dancers. Maria looked and looked for the soldiers, hoping that she was mistaken.

  She saw one. A huge, white-uniformed figure emerged from the corridor at the end of the gallery that Gianovi had been indicating. He glanced down at the throng, and instead of descending, began to make his way along the gallery, with the uneven, stumping gait of a man with a false leg. As he passed a footman he said something and laughed.

  Katherina's hand was on Maria's arm. 'We must take our places,' she was saying.

  But Maria was transfixed. A sudden misgiving had seized her. There was something wrong – something very wrong about the large man who had looked down on them all from the gallery.

  'Sir,' she said to Gianovi. 'Tell me, I beg you. That man up there. It is not . . . ?'

  Gianovi looked up and smiled tightly. 'It is indeed. That is your Count Balcke-Horneswerden.'

  As Maria stared, wordless, at her brother's murderer, he added. 'I believe I did say that certain matters of justice and order have come together this evening. The reason Count Balcke is in good humour is that he has been informed that the charges against him will be dismissed. And they will be, shortly after ten o'clock tonight.'

  Her friends were gone, hurrying away towards the dance floor. The candles were being lit there. Still she stared up at the man who made his painful, cheerful way along the gallery.

  'It – is most unjust,' she whispered.

  'If you are to make your plea,' murmured Gianovi. 'It must be now – before ten o'clock.'

  She heard him distantly, as if his voice had come from far away. She nodded.

  'First I must dance,' she said.

  'Officer's conference, sir,' said a young hussar, hurrying past. 'Now. Down the east corridor, third door on the left. There will be orders.'

  'I've heard,' said Wéry.

  He did not move from the gallery rail. Orders – whatever they were, however urgent – could wait. He wanted to watch the Lightstep. With all this wretched, useless skulking in the barracks, he had not had the chance to see it for months.

  He had arrived at the ball with a great sense of detachment, and had gone at once to find a place where he would not be bothered by anyone. His mind was full of his talk with Uhnen. He knew he was going to have to issue a challenge. He was going to have to fight. And he did not want to.

  It was his own fault. His own damned fault. If he could only have kept his temper in the coffee house! But no. His fault went further back than that. He should never have allowed himself to be tempted into his bargain with Maria von Adelsheim. He should never have looked at her. Weakness, always weakness! And everything he had been doing was a shambles because of it.

  No, that was not true either. The latest report had been a good one – the best he had ever done – even if the prediction of action in January had been astray. It had been a real blow, at last, against the enemy he had to fight. But the cost, to himself and to her . . . Too much? If in the end he lost his life?

  He would not try to kill Uhnen. He would shoot wide, if it came to that. It would give Uhnen every chance of killing him, if he wished. And he did. I wanted to do it. It was not just loyalty to the army, or outrage at the betrayal of Balcke. Von Uhnen was jealous – jealous of the man whose name had been coupled in gossip with Maria von Adelsheim. In every way, she was becoming his downfall.

  And still he waited. After all, it might be the only time he would see her dance.

  She was there, taking her place in the middle set with her candle in her hand. Because she had arrived after most of the others, she would be one of those to begin on the outside. It would be some minutes before her turn. He would wait at least until she had changed in and out again. The music was beginning. From up here he would see it all very clearly.

  'This is a fine time to be dreaming about women,' said a voice at his elbow.

  It was Balcke-Horneswerden himself. He had been stumping at his best pace along the gallery towards the east corridor and had checked at the sight of the officer at
the rail.

  Wéry drew himself up, conscious of the first swaying movements of the dance below him. 'Sir,' he said.

  'I've called a conference, Wéry,' he said. 'I expect all officers of Captain rank and above to attend. You especially. Come on.'

  Reluctantly Wéry forced himself away from the rail. 'What's happening, sir?'

  'I'll tell you if you come with me and speak to no one until we've got the door closed behind us. It's martial law, starting at ten o'clock.'

  'Martial law!'

  The Count grinned bitterly.

  'And a heavy fist. I tell you, some of those fine folk down below will find they don't need their carriages tonight. Come on, now. There's a new post for you – promotion again. And a transfer. You'll have no time for daydreams after this.'

  Dazed, Wéry followed him down the soft-carpeted corridors of the palace.

  XXIX

  The Painted Room

  The charges dismissed! Dismissed!

  She danced in a dream, barely seeing the circling women around her. Her feet moved in time, her hands took the light and guarded it with care. Her eyes lifted images from the room and brought them to a mind distracted. She saw her mother making her way brusquely through the crowd. She saw Canon Rother and Baron Löhm conferring among a group of their hangers-on. They had heard the news. They must have been planning to confront the Prince as soon as he appeared, anticipating victory. Now they would be debating whether to press their attack or to withdraw at once. But they had not listened to Gianovi. Before ten o'clock, he had said. And she – she, Maria Adelsheim, must go to him. Against these old practitioners of intrigue the Prince would be armoured. He would be expecting them. He would not be expecting her.

  She danced, with her face pale, and the ghost of her brother at her shoulder.

  She would go. She knew it with certainty. The clock at the end of the ball room showed twenty minutes past nine. It moved slowly. It barely seemed to move at all. The dance went on and on, in and out and round and round. She knew every figure. Everyone around her was smiling. What was there to smile about? No one should be smiling at a time like this.