The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  'I see,' Wéry said, and sighed. 'Thank you.'

  There was something awful about Bergesrode's faith in him. Twice, at least, he had betrayed the secretary's confidence – over the Frenchman's passport, and the meeting of the Illuminati. And none of the services he had provided to Bergesrode had been enough to prevent the man's fall from office. Yet here he was, now the subordinate, uncomplaining of his demotion, dedicated only to his cause. And he was ready to break even the sacred rules of his church, to insist that Wéry was the one to defend the city. Why?

  Because of the seed of hate in his heart. Because he knew it in Wéry, too.

  Wéry felt very tired.

  He should call Uhnen in, harangue him, turn him around. Perhaps he could even appoint the gaunt old aristocrat as his second-in-command. The defence was weak enough already. A struggle at the top would shake the men badly. But . . .

  But he could not see himself succeeding. He could not imagine that anything he said would persuade that arrogant old noble. Not now. All he would achieve would be to put the plotters on their guard.

  The man had just lost his son. And that must count for nothing. It would only make him the more unpredictable.

  The safe thing to do – the only thing to do – was to strike first. What mattered was that Uhnen's subordinates should still take orders afterwards. So the blow should not be struck in front of them. Once it was done . . .

  Bergesrode was waiting for him.

  'Your cathedral troops,' Wéry said. 'Are they loyal?'

  'Yes.'

  'Could you arrange an arrest?'

  Again Bergesrode looked at his thumbs.

  'If I must,' he said.

  'When he returns from the French lines. He will come to the Saxon gate. Do not wait until he has rejoined his troops inside the city. Take him to . . .' He hesitated.

  It would be a risk to hold Uhnen in the citadel. Some of the garrison might be sympathizers.

  'Is the cathedral secure?'

  'It could be made so – if necessary.'

  'To the cathedral, then. And see that you hold him there.'

  To fight them you must be like them, he thought, as he watched Bergesrode's retreating back. The Prince had said it, and denied it. Then he had gone on to arrest and imprison his political opponents one after another.

  And he, too, had denied it. And now he, too, was striking out like a tyrant: striking at an innocent man before he could become guilty.

  'Commander!' called a voice from the door.

  'Wait,' he said.

  He put his hands over his face.

  He had become the very thing that he most hated.

  XXXV

  The Grate

  In her rooms in the Celesterburg Maria lay between waking and sleep. Her body was weary but her mind could not rest. She dreamed that she was wandering through the palace around her, and that it became her home at Adelsheim, which she had never left after all. The place was full of people, many people, and the fighting had begun. Before her stood the doctor's wife, with her arms about her son. Naughty boy, you're not dead yet, said a soldier and fired his gun. And the boy was dead after all, and the woman stood with her arms around him and looked at her, and her eyes said How could you?

  In her dream she escaped through a door into the study of the green judge. The room was empty. She looked and looked for the thing she was trying to remember. It was not there. But she knew that if she waited for it, it would be brought to her. And yes, here was the servant standing there at the door. (Only it was not the servant. It was Ludwig Jürich, with his green coat and his patient eyes.)

  This is for your friend, he said. He must have it as quickly as possible.

  She recoiled at the memory of the tormented head. But the thing in his hand was not a painting. It was a book. And his finger marked a page that she remembered. 'When he was set down upon the judgement seat, his wife sent unto him, saying Have thou nothing to do with that innocent man . . .'

  She woke, sour and confused. She tried to think where she might go and what she might do, but could not. The only thing that seemed to offer her any purpose was to find Michel and stay with him, as she had stayed all the night before. She remembered that Father Bergesrode from the cathedral had said that there would be a mass at six o'clock. He might be there. Indeed he certainly should be, since the purpose of the mass was to allow the garrison and the city to pray for deliverance. He should be there for everyone to see.

  Strange that a young foreigner, of no great birth, should be their Hector now! Strange, too, that she should hardly think it strange. The time brought these things, just as it brought wild, bare-legged rides to the city without thought for censure. The city looked instinctively for a leader, and one had been appointed for them. But was he ready? How would he carry himself?

  She must find him.

  There was no clock in her room. To judge by the fading light she still had time, but not very much. She roused up Pirenne, who was dozing by the fire, and made her help her get ready. She sent for Bottrop, but after waiting for him for ten minutes she lost patience, and the two women set out on foot for the cathedral together. By now it was nearly dark. There were no lights on the looping road that led down from the Celesterburg gate to the river.

  It was as they were crossing the Old Bridge that she heard the cannon from the east wall. The sound, coming from the far side of the low rise on which the cathedral and much of the city stood, was a dull thump, like someone dropping a sack of corn onto hard ground. After a few seconds it was repeated. And then it was repeated again. Something was happening out in the dark beyond the wall. She quickened her pace, as if the cannon shots only made it more urgent that they should be at the cathedral on time.

  In fact they were early. And yet already there were a number of people there, gathered in little groups in the aisles for the comfort of one another's company As she stood by the door many more were coming in, rich and artisan and poor, all with the same pale faces and worried eyes. Again and again she heard the question asked: was it the enemy, firing into the city? Or was it only our side, so far? Voices, some anxious, others self-important, declared this or that about what was happening and what was going to happen. But she did not understand how anyone could be sure. There were very few uniforms in the crowd. She looked and looked for Michel. She stood by the great doors and searched every new knot of entrants with her eyes as they came in. But he did not appear. Perhaps . . . perhaps he was on the wall instead. Perhaps he thought it was more important to be there rather than here. She did not know. But the townspeople would miss him. She was missing him too.

  Thump, went the guns on the wall. Thump-thump.

  The choir was filing in, in silence. The people were drifting forward up the nave. Still she hung by the door, waiting for each late entrant, to see if he might come after all. He did not.

  When the first Kyrie Eleisons began, she crossed herself in the direction of the distant altar, muttered to Pirenne and left.

  It was night outside now. She turned at once for the eastern exit from the cathedral square. She heard Pirenne exclaim and sensed her footsteps falter as the maid realized where they were going, but she pressed on, down the broad Bamberg road towards the east gate.

  Something flashed, like weak lightning, and the dark shapes of the roofs and the buildings showed black for an instant before retreating into shadow. The thump! followed a second later and much louder than before. And then there was quiet, and nothing but the darkness and the sound of their feet hurrying as they made their way down the hill. She could hear nothing else – no voices, no screams, no crashing among the buildings. The eastern side of the city seemed quiet and dark, indifferent to the cannonade and to the two women who scuttled through its streets like mice.

  Thump-Thump!

  It was much louder now, and sharper. It was coming from a little to the left of the Bamberg gate – from the bastion just south of the breach. That was where they would come, the old soldier had said. Were
they coming already? But there were no sounds other than the irregular beat of the cannon on the wall. The sweet smell of smoke eddied in the night air.

  'Lady Maria . . .!' exclaimed Pirenne. She was afraid.

  'Come on!' Maria muttered.

  They scurried into the deep shadows behind the Bamberg Gate. There were people here, muttering, handling weapons. White uniforms drifted ghost-like in the darkness. Within the bastion a cannon barked its coughing roar, and now she heard the rattle and squeak of the wheels as it hurled its huge weight backwards with the force of the shot. She could see the light of the lanterns in the casement, filtering out through the bastion door.

  And now her heart almost failed her, as she stood with her foot on the open stair that led up to the platform. What was she doing here – here of all places, in this hell of noise and smoke? Her limbs congealed with the thought of the open space above her, and the men and the guns and the enemy in the night.

  But surely he would be up there – surely he would! And if she did not move in a moment, she might never move at all.

  'Come on!' she exclaimed to Pirenne, to herself. And her feet forced her upwards.

  He was not there. Her eyes hunted among the crowd of men at the wall, but she did not find him. The men were aiming their muskets outwards and peering at the darkness. Someone called and pointed. Out there below the walls, perhaps three hundred yards off, a lantern had showed fleetingly. The men in the gun casement below her must have seen it too, for again a cannon bellowed and the air was full of smoke.

  'Quiet! quiet!' called a voice among the men.

  Silence flowed in behind the gun-shot. But it was a silence that prickled with little noises. From somewhere away before her came the low chink, chink of picks and spades in earth. It seemed to be coming from more than one place. And it seemed to be horribly close. Even at so innocent a sound, Maria could not help shuddering.

  'Listen!' said one of the men.

  That was not digging. That was a softer noise, and much closer. In the blackness out beyond the ramparts, someone had stumbled.

  The men were pointing their weapons.

  'Shoot! Shoot!' cried the officer suddenly. The muskets flashed and spat. Maria fled down the steps into the dark behind the wall.

  Pirenne had disappeared. She had not come up the steps. Now the shadows behind the bastion door were empty of her. Maria cast left and right, and saw no sign of her. Deep in the casement a gun bellowed, and she ran.

  She ran north from the Bamberg Way, up the long Craftmarket, which curved along the inside of the wall. The thought in her head was of reaching the bastion on the north side of the breach, because if he was not at this one then surely he must be there.

  Or perhaps he was here, at the breach itself, where the line of the wall above her broke down into a low dyke of rubble? The Craftmarket seemed to be full of lanterns and white uniforms. The heads of men looking out over the makeshift palisade showed clearly against the sky. Calls and orders filled the air. Men hurried along the inside of the fence, stumbling in the darkness on the uneven ground. A long, thin man in a greatcoat was up there, turning now and then to shout more orders at the men on the wall and in the street. Maria came up to him.

  'Please . . .' she said, and her voice was a whimper.

  His head was only a black shape as he turned to look down at her. But he must have been able to see enough in the light of the lanterns to know who she was.

  'Is he coming?' he asked her.

  It was the question she had been going to ask him.

  'I don't know where he is!' she pleaded. 'Have you seen him?'

  'No, I damned well haven't!' he snapped.

  'Captain!' called a voice along the wall. Again, muskets were being pointed outwards. The long man craned to look.

  'Please . . .' said Maria again.

  At that moment the muskets went off crack-crack-crack! on the palisade to her left and were answered by more shots from outside. Something went spat! against the wall of the building ten yards behind her and dropped lightly to the street.

  'Get out of my way,' the man screamed at her. 'Get the hell out of my way!'

  So many times that night she asked for news of him, from uniformed men hurrying or loitering about their duties on the wall. On the north-eastern bastion a militia officer whom she knew slightly said that the Commander had been there perhaps an hour before, but he did not know where he was now. He had gone back into the town perhaps. She went in the direction that he pointed, almost feeling her way in the dark streets, and found more soldiers crouching in the doorway of the Ironworkers' Guildhall. They had not seen the Commander but they pointed her on to other places where he might be. And so it went on. Some of the men were tense and excited, some angry, some pretended to be bored. But each time she heard that hesitation in their voices as they answered her. Where is he? Yes, where is he? The Prince was gone, and the Governor was gone, and now where was the Commander? But he was there, somewhere. He must be. Lost in the night of the besieged city, they would point off hopefully in the direction that they supposed their orders were coming from.

  And then, well after midnight, there was the sentry, standing by a lamp-lit arch in the Saint Lucia street, who looked at her with sleepy eyes.

  'The Commander?' He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 'He's inside.'

  This man, too, must have known who she was, because he let her pass without a word. She walked down a short gate-tunnel, and found herself in a courtyard so filled with wagons and indistinct piles of supplies that for a moment she did not know where she was. Then she realized that she was standing in the barrack square of the hussars. She could still hear the sullen thump of the guns, but all around her the building was dark and quiet. The wagons were lined up wheel to wheel and teetering with high loads, which smelled like baulks of freshly-cut timber under canvas, but might have been something else altogether. There was no one else there.

  But there was a single light, high in the building on her left hand. He had had his old office there. She had come here before, and had climbed up there to give him the painting. It seemed very long ago.

  She felt her way among the wagons and found the door to the building. It was open. The stair inside was utterly dark, but she groped her way up it, counting the flights one, two, three, until she was greeted on a narrow landing by a thin line of lamplight coming from under a closed door. She stole up to it and knocked softly. When there was no reply, she went in.

  He was there, kneeling by the grate in which a small fire was going. He had placed his lamp upon the bare floor by the hearth. Scattered in front of him were a range of papers. It looked as though he had taken them out from hiding, because a floorboard was up, showing the black and filthy space beneath.

  He looked up at her in surprise. He must have been so preoccupied that he had heard neither her footstep nor her knock. There was a dazed look in his eyes. She remembered that he had not slept the night before and probably not during the day either.

  'What is it?' he asked, as if he thought she must have some message for him.

  'I heard you were here,' she said. 'So I came.'

  1 see.

  He looked back at the papers in front of him, picked one up, looked at it, and lit it carefully in the grate.

  'Thank you,' he added.

  With a whispering noise the paper withered into brittle black talons of ash. He picked up another and looked at it.

  He had moved his chair and desk to one side to give himself more room. She set the chair to face the hearth and settled in it.

  'They are fighting, on the walls,' she said. And as she spoke a cannon thumped distantly in agreement.

  'I know.'

  'The enemy are coming up close. They are using muskets.'

  'Yes,' he said. He put another paper on the fire. 'They do not want us to sortie against them while they are digging their works. So they are patrolling up to the walls. Also they are trying to assess the depth of the ditch before the breach.'


  'I understand,' she said. It was a relief to be told that the enemy were not attacking in earnest – at least, not yet.

  He sighed, and looked at the papers on the floor before him.

  'My clerk has gone,' he said, as if to explain himself. 'There is no one else whom I can allow to do this. And after tonight there will be no more time.'

  She supposed that the papers must be important. But she could not imagine that their importance mattered now. There must be a hundred other things the Commander should be doing. With the guns firing from the walls, he had shut himself away to do this. And even the guns were not that important, she thought, compared with what would be happening soon. He was already exhausted. He should sleep. But perhaps he could not.

  'You should stay in the citadel from now on,' he said.

  'I know, but . . .'

  'It is the safest place,' he said.

  And where will you be? she thought. In the smoke, and looking for the door of death? But she did not say it. And he did not press her. Like a drunk to his bottle, he was drawn back to his papers again. Through the window came the sounds of three or four cannon firing altogether. He did not look up.

  They have all gone, she thought suddenly. All the clever people who brought him here. And now they have left him. They had left him with the city, its people, its defenders – and the enemy outside, creeping closer in the darkness.

  '. . . But may I sit with you, for a while?' she asked.

  'Yes. Please do.'

  He took a roll of paper and uncurled it so that he could feed one corner of it into the grate. It was one of the paintings of the face of Christ, and it burned with a flare and a faint hiss. Another head of Christ was still in its place above the mantelpiece. It hung in a pool of light thrown upwards by the lamp on the floor.

  The madman's painting looked more life-like than ever. There, on the wall, was a picture of living pain. A head lolling in the brown hues of the brush; a mouth opened with a silent howl, as if the man was undergoing his agony even as she watched.

  And perhaps He was. Perhaps He was even now writhing and groaning with all the thousand inexcusable follies being committed that night. The irregular thump of the guns was the sound of nails being driven into his hands.