The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  There was a crowd there, and many soldiers drawn up in ranks, wearing their packs and grey overcoats. On the opposite side of the road was a full squadron of hussars, facing north. The horses tossed their heads. Stirrups and steel gleamed in the sun. Officers were moving to and fro, checking boots, straps and horseshoes. The men were preparing to march. The crowd around them were families and townspeople, come to wave them goodbye. Where could they be going? Heads turned to stare at her as she came up, and went on staring. She felt awkward; obvious and at the same time indecent on her perch with her legs showing at her horse's flanks. Stiffly, she dismounted.

  There was no one to hold Dominus for her. She would have to hold him herself, or let him go.

  'Stay,' she murmured to him and made her way into the crowd. She moved slowly, for she realized now that she was very sore indeed.

  The people had come out to see the soldiers. They were calling to them, some weeping, some laughing. She saw ragged children run up and hug a man in the back rank by the leg. He fluffed their heads, and told them to leave him, but they went on hugging his leg and calling up to him until a sergeant yelled at the man and the children ran away.

  An officer was standing near her. She knew him. It was Karl von Uhnen. He had not looked her way.

  Her first instinct was to shrink back a little. She could not have said why, but she did not want him to see her. He was too much part of her old life. He would only be shocked by what she had done. Besides, he must be busy. He must be about to depart with them. He could hardly help her find her way in the city.

  But who else would there be? Here at least was someone she knew. There was no need to tell him yet what she had done.

  Still uncertain what she would say, she began to approach him. He had not noticed her yet. When she touched his arm he would fairly jump out of his skin . . .

  Another green-and-white uniform shouldered its way through the crowd and stood in front of Karl. It was Michel Wéry. Maria stopped.

  Slowly, Karl lifted his hand in a salute.

  'Sir,' she heard him say.

  'No need for that,' said Wéry. 'I came to say two things.'

  'What would they be?' said Karl. Maria did not think his voice sounded friendly.

  'First, good luck.'

  'Thank you.'

  'Second. If, when this is over, you and the others come to me, I will say whatever you need me to say.'

  'I see.'

  'I think it will satisfy you. And if it does not, I will meet you when and where you want.'

  'I see.'

  Wéry seemed to be waiting for more than that. He was looking at Karl with his head cocked on one side. 'Well?' he prompted.

  'I'll think about it.'

  A loud bellow from the ranks cut short whatever Wéry had been about to say. Karl von Uhnen saluted him once more, and strode to where a man was holding his horse at the head of his squadron. Wéry watched him go. His back was towards her. She stole up to him and touched him on the arm.

  He did jump. It was very satisfying. And as he stared down at her she felt her own face break into a mirthful grin.

  'I thought you had left!' he stammered.

  'I came back,' she said.

  She had so many things to say to him. I have displeased my mother. You would oblige me if you did not ask me about it. And: Can you tell me how I may help? And: I must speak with you about things you said in Paris. And: Can you have someone look after my horse? She did not say any of them. For the moment she wanted only to look at him and know that she had arrived.

  With a long clattering of hooves the hussars wheeled onto the road. People were cheering now, waving hats, and weeping. She saw Karl von Uhnen at the head of his squadron. She saw him look down and see her, standing at Wéry's side. She waved and smiled. His face was wooden. Then he was carried away down the road to war.

  There was a lump in her throat. A flood of wordless feelings engulfed her as the people called and the dust rose. She turned to the man beside her.

  'I came back to help,' she said. 'Can you tell me how?'

  'You can keep me sane,' he said.

  'Now, the Dürwalds,' called the colonel of the infantry. 'Let's nip those buggers' arses.'

  'Ho! Hurrah!' bellowed the ranks, and the lead company surged onto the road in the wake of the hussars.

  'Surely he should not say things like that!' exclaimed Maria.

  Wéry looked at her helplessly.

  A voice in the second company had started to sing. Others joined it, first here and there among the regiment, and then all along the ranks as the song swung into the chorus.

  . . . And we've fucked our mothers and we've fucked our hogs And we fucked the Frenchies and we fucked their frogs. We're the damned, damned, dogs of the Dürwald, Rolling in Blinki's train.

  'Oh – but we should have our own Marseillaise!' she protested, putting her hands to her ears. And then she smiled. These were soldiers, and their feet would soon be sore. And this was the world she had entered, where all ties were broken and women rode bare-legged, where the world might end tomorrow, and until it did the soldiers would always sing like this.

  'Who – or what – is Blinki?' she asked.

  Wéry took a moment to answer. 'Old Blinkers,' he said at last. 'Balcke-Horneswerden.'

  He was still staring at her, as if he could not believe that she was there. And on the road the soldiers swung by, singing as they passed, as if their leader's honour had never been tarnished, as if it had not gone downstream in a coffin almost a year ago.

  XXXI

  Confession

  There was no time, thought Wéry. She was here, and the fight was here, both at once. Either would have taken every moment, every power and ingenuity he had – were it not for the other.

  They walked back through the city together, leading their horses because she was not dressed for riding (and how had she and her mount come here, then?), and his mind was all confusion. The engineers wanted more labour for the breaches. The Knight von Uhnen, whose militias would provide the manpower, was expecting to be consulted about it. According to his own plan he should already have switched effort from the walls to building barricades and strong points inside the town. He still had not spoken to the artillery officers about bringing guns down from the walls to the concealed battery at the Church of St Barbara. And the plan for the Mercers' Guildhall would not work. He had woken in the night knowing that. But if they abandoned it . . .

  At last, the war-demons yammered in his brain. At last!

  But now there was a new voice among them, strident, shouting against them, She's here! Look, she's here, beside you!

  And she had said that she did not wish to stay in the Adelsheim house in the Saint Emil quarter. And that was as important as anything else.

  'There is the Celesterburg,' he said, hardly daring to hope. 'Many of the rooms are empty now. And it is within the citadel, which will be the safest place.'

  'Is His Highness not in residence?'

  'He has accompanied the cathedral treasures to safety. He will not return before the siege is lifted.'

  'Oh.'

  'Of course you will need a maid to escort you,' he said hurriedly. 'I will see that one is found from the palace staff – unless you wish to send for one from the Adelsheim house?'

  'No,' she said, firmly shaking her head. 'No, they must not know that I am here. And yes, if a maid could be provided from the palace, that would be most acceptable.'

  'And perhaps,' he heard himself say. 'Perhaps you will dine with me this evening?' (You, the child of an Imperial Knight, dine with someone like me? A thing not to be thought of – until now).

  'I should be delighted,' she said. 'But as I have said to you, what I most earnestly desire is to know how I may give something to the defence. And this you have not told me.'

  Heavens! Did she want to pile rubble in the breaches? Or tear rags in the hospitals? (Hospitals! There were still too few. But if they were no longer going to make the Mercer's Ha
ll a strong point, perhaps . . . He must think about that.)

  She was waiting for him to answer.

  'You should talk to people,' he said.

  'Talk?'

  'It will help them. Waiting is always the worst thing.'

  When she came that evening, accompanied by a maid from the palace, he thought she was the loveliest thing he had ever seen. He did not notice that she was still wearing her travelling dress until she apologized for it. Over supper, by the light of two candles, her face was beautiful, and his heart was moving heavily within him. He allowed himself more wine than he would drink in two evenings alone.

  And they talked; first (conscious of themselves, and of the corporal who served them and the maid in the room) of commonplace things: of the Celesterburg, now booming in its emptiness, with only Gianovi left to occupy even one wing of it; of the officers left to help prepare the defence of the city (and he explained why in such a situation an engineer or an artilleryman was worth any ten infantry officers, however well born they might be); of words, and wordplay; of what she had read, and he had not.

  But as he sat and looked at her in the candle flame, he was more and more aware of things he wanted to talk of – private thoughts and fears that it would be a relief to say, and that wanted to be said. And bit by bit he found himself yielding to them, and was glad. He thought that the same was true for her, too. He listened soberly to her account of her return to the capital. He guessed at things she had left unsaid, about what had passed between her and her mother. He guessed, too, that she did not wish him to ask after them. So he did not.

  She put her glass down and her hands to her head.

  'I have killed the woman I was,' she said.

  'How?'

  'By my conduct.'

  She was thinking that she would be disowned, and perhaps disgraced. She would be left penniless and with no future. And yes, perhaps – even probably – she would be.

  'Do you regret your conduct?' he asked.

  'No.'

  He waited.

  'What do you think?' she asked, dropping her hands to look at him.

  'I think that in a very few days it will not matter.'

  'Because of the siege?'

  He nodded. 'We know a force has left Wetzlar and is on its way. They will have reached Hanau by now. From there, they may take one of two routes. If they come direct, we will see them tomorrow. If, however, they follow the north bank of the Vater, it will take them longer, and they will find Balcke- Horneswerden and the army blocking their way at the Pullen stream . . .' He broke off, seeing her face harden at the name of her enemy.

  But all she said was, 'Why would they not come the straight way?'

  'Because then they must approach from the west, and both the citadel and the river will stand between them and the town. The citadel is strong – the wall is breached on this east side, yes, but it is not difficult to block and is well sheltered. If they come along the north bank of the river, however, the city is open to attack. We are trying to fill in the city breach but even so it is vulnerable. That is why we have sent almost all our regular units to block the road at the Pullen crossings. Those men you saw leaving the north gate were the last of them. No doubt they will be pushed back onto the city. But we gain time. The longer we resist, the more chance the Emperor will intervene.'

  'And if he does not?'

  'We shall make them pay as high a price as we can – in the field, on the walls, and in the city itself.'

  In this light, her eyes were dark. He watched her thinking about his •words.

  'Michel – why has His Highness left the city?'

  She had called him 'Michel', like a friend or a cousin or . . . or someone very close. His blood was tingling – was that just the wine? He must stay in control. He must not do or say anything foolish. It might simply have been a slip. Or she might think better of it.

  'He did not want to go,' he said. 'But in the end Gianovi persuaded him. The enemy want both him and the city. We cannot move the city. But we can keep him out of their reach. As long as he is not caught, the fight may go on.'

  As he spoke, a thought stole like a shadow from the back of his brain. She had said she had killed herself. Coming here, she might have killed herself indeed. She had come to a city where the plan of defence was to continue the fight within the walls, no matter what the cost.

  It was his plan. If she died, it would be he that had killed her. And her face, now solemn and thoughtful, would be twisted in shock and pain. If he lived he would carry it in his head forever, as Maximilian Jürich carried his tortured face of Christ.

  Hey, Michel – have you ever looked at somebody?

  He was seized with a feeling that he had found something glorious: that his hand had closed on it, unexpectedly, as he had fumbled for something else in a dark place. And he was weighing it, looking at it, and knowing that he should – he should – put it back. It did not belong to him.

  Her life did not belong to him. He should send her away. He should put her, willing or not, into a guarded coach out of the city. And he knew that he would not. He wanted her to stay with him. He wanted her to stay, in the knowledge of what was coming.

  'They must be fought, everywhere and with everything there is,' he said. 'I have always thought so.'

  'Not always. You were one of them once. You made speeches in Paris.'

  Dear God! She knew that!

  'Yes.'

  She was looking at him.

  '. . . Yes,' he said. 'I – I made speeches in Paris. I wanted the French to come and help our revolution in Brabant and the Netherlands . . .

  'Of course it was not the only reason France went to war. It was not even the main one. Nevertheless, I urged them, and to war they went. Then . . .' he sighed. '. . . The war brought fear to Paris, and fear corrupted the revolution. And my country became spoils of war. I think . . .'

  He covered his face with his hands. Then he laid them on the table before him. The white marks of his scars seemed to float from his skin in the gloom.

  'I think . . .' he said at last, 'it is because I know what I said then, that I will now do anything in my power to drive this revolution back where it came from, and to kill it if I can.'

  He had never linked the two thoughts before.

  'What can I say?' he said helplessly. 'A monster was made, and I had thought it would be a god.'

  A god. The god of Christians was the dead and innocent Christ. The face of Maria was before him, and it was all that he could see. Her eyes were on the table.

  'We thought that, too,' she said. 'Albrecht and I.' Then she said, 'So this is why the Prince made you Commander of the citadel.'

  'Yes.'

  'Because you hate them so much. Because you will fight, when no one else would.'

  'Maybe, yes.'

  If he had been speaking to anyone else, he would not have said 'maybe'.

  In the muzziness of wine, he thought: I should have known you before this. If I had known you before this, I would not be as I am. I would not be ready to throw cities on the fire. I would believe that people were to be loved and cherished, not buried with markers to say what they died for.

  'But he put Gianovi over you, and Gianovi does not think as you do.'

  'I have orders concerning Gianovi.'

  (Oh, why had he said that? It sounded so childish, as though he was determined not to be diminished in her eyes.)

  'Orders?'

  He had said it because it weighed on him. Something in him begged to confess to this too, just as it begged to speak about the Inquisitor and the Prince's other political enemies who were now penned in the cells and strong rooms of the citadel. But it was weakness, foolishness. He could hardly talk about his orders in front of the maid and the corporal. And even if they were alone, how could she help? All the tawdry, repulsive choices that went with this post – that always went with any post where he must command other people beside himself – there was nothing she could say that would help him with
those. If the time came, the orders would still have to be carried out.

  It seemed to him that he had shown her the casket of his soul. She had looked into it, and found that it was empty. No words of his could fill that emptiness. A word of hers, now, could destroy him.

  'It doesn't matter,' he muttered. And he waited, afraid.

  She put a hand up to touch her eyes.

  'I am tired,' she said.

  It was with a strange sense of relief that he rose to begin saying goodnight.

  The maid led, with a lamp in her hand. Maria followed her across the walled space between the commander's house and the palace. They made their way around to the towered gateway where the porter opened the gate for them, and then across the inner courtyard. The palace was dark, and quiet. Only in one row of windows on the first floor were there lights burning. That must be Gianovi, and perhaps his clerks, kept up late by the government of the city. Maria wondered if Gianovi even knew there was another inhabitant in the palace. There was no reason, surely, why he should. But she was anxious that he should not know and so she drew her shawl around her head and hurried across to the grand steps, forcing the maid to keep up with her. The doors were open. In the ill-lit hall the footmen nodded blearily in their chairs. Maria and her maid mounted the grand stair, and another flight of stairs, passed down a dark corridor and found the door to the room that had been made ready for her. There she could thank the maid, bid her good-night, and be alone at last.

  Someone had put out a night dress for her. Other dresses were laid ready for the morning. Whose had they been? They were all far too fine and formal, she thought. She would have to speak to someone about that. In the meantime, the sheets had been warmed and the pillow was soft, and she could lie down.

  She could lie down, but she could not sleep.

  I have killed the woman I was. Was that true? She had abandoned all the supports and protections that had surrounded her every day of her life. She lay in a city whose enemies were coming closer. Her life might indeed be very close to its end, but she did not fear that. What she feared was losing whatever moments of her life were left in wasteful idleness, as all the rest of her life had been lost. And yet – what had held her back?