The Lightstep (29 page)

'No.'

No of course he would not. That had all been weakness. None
of that mattered now. But . . .

'That's good. It would upset my priestly colleague again, and
he can be so tiresome.'

'I must go,' said Wéry. And he fled.

He fled down the long, soft-carpeted corridors of the
Celesterburg, with his mind a daze of thoughts. She was in the
Rhineland! Why? For him? A crazy thought! She was with the
relatives of a friend. That must be the Jürichs. He must speak with
her as soon as she returned. Maybe he could at least learn
from her how things stood, and why there had been no news. But
when would she return? And how would he manage to see her
if she did?

"Why hadn't she spoken to him before going?

Because she could not. Because she was the child of
aristocrats, chaperoned and supervised and tied to the round
of balls and levees and soirees that he loathed. He had engaged
her as a go-between, and had never thought that a noblewoman
in Erzberg might have difficulty communicating with just whom
she chose. So it was
his
fault! Damn, damn, damn! Now she had
gone off into the very Rhineland itself, marching to the last order
given like her brother to Hersheim! What a stupid thing to have
happened!

Fernhausen was no fool. He must have guessed something, or
why would he have mentioned her name? People were always
guessing at what he was doing, and their guesses struck very
close. He went busy, busy, busy like an ant, imagining that all the
things he did were seen by him alone. All the time they were
peering down on him, watching from all around. Could he never
keep anything safe? If Erzberg guessed and gossiped, then the
enemy might guess too, and might learn names that he did not
want them to learn. And that could be dangerous: dangerous for
the Jürichs. Dangerous, too, for her.

He thought of his man Kranz, and that distant puff of smoke.
And his heart lurched, and he felt sick.

He had seen her twice – only twice in his whole life! He had
trusted something important to her, had thought she had failed
him, and had now discovered that she was being faithful to her
promise after all. That was hardly enough . . .

Hardly enough to explain what he felt, as he hurried out into
the palace courtyard, and sunlight burst around him.

He had only seen her twice. But she had been with him for
such a long time – in Albrecht; in Albrecht's words of her, and of
his home; in his thoughts after he himself had seen her, and since
that day in the barrack room, in the tantalizing feeling, day in, day
out, almost unnoticed beyond the horizons of his brain, that there
was something more than he saw and did, something more to the
world, there for him to wonder at the moment he could drag his
mind from what it was doing!

The long windows of the palace, heavy-eyed with their carved
sills and cornicing, looked down upon him, and told him she was
beyond the Rhine.

There was nothing he could do to help. Messages would only
increase the danger. He could warn the frontier dragoons to look
out for her coach – for any coach – but that was all.

And he had, this very hour, promised Bergesrode a report on
a conspiracy in the city. Bergesrode would not forget that. The
report would have to be delivered. He could stall, delay, claim to
be following up clues; but sooner or later he would have
to deliver it. He would have to name names. One of the very few
names he had was 'Adelsheim'.

The Jürich household prepared for Christmas in a spirit of
determined optimism. Maria and Anna sat together by a low
fire one long, wet afternoon, and with two serving-maids to help
them they made more garlands than Maria believed could
possibly be necessary. Emilia Jürich came to join them, and
exclaimed over how much they had done. She seemed happy, and
pleased with herself, and eventually she said, 'Well,
I
have news. I
own I have been concerned but it is going to be well. It is a great
relief to me.'

'My dear! Please tell!' said Anna.

'No, Anna,' said Maria. 'Let us see if we can guess. It will be
diverting. Let us guess, Emilia.'

'Very well. In twenty questions?'

'Indeed. And you must answer precisely, or it will not be fair.'

'Go on, then,' said Emilia, with her eyes sparkling.

'Is it an idea, or is it a thing that I may touch?'

'It is a thing you may touch – and indeed I hope you will.'

'No, you must give us no clues, Emilia, or it will be too easy.'

'I do not care. I love the thought and I want to share it with
you. Indeed you are cruel to me, to put me off so!'

'Hug it to yourself a moment more. Is it alive?'

'It is – for now.'

'Is it . . . Oh, no. Anna dear, you should have a turn.'

Anna blinked. She looked at Emilia. 'Is it,' she asked slowly,
'something concerned with Christmas?'

'It is indeed. I am astonished you have not guessed it already.'

'It must be – ah, it must be some provision for Christmas,' said
Maria. 'I know it has been weighing on you, and really it should
not. Is it the Christmas lunch?'

'Ah yes!' said Emilia. 'But you must guess what!'

'Very well,' said Anna. 'Has it four legs or two?'

'It has eight!'

'Eight? There are more than one, then. Very well, are they flesh
or fowl?'

'Flesh.'

'It is calf, is it?' cried Maria.

'Or pig?' said Anna.

'It is pig!' cried Emilia, and clapped her hands. 'My man Bauer
has been hiding a sow and a litter of sucking pigs in the woods,
and I knew nothing of it until today. But I am promised two, if
they are not discovered and taken before next week. And he has
been so clever and close with them that I do not think they will
be. Oh, I am so relieved!'

'Oh, but well done!'

'Now let Christmas come,' said Emilia. 'For I am prepared.'

And Maria was glancing at Anna with a look that said
You see?
I told you that it would all be well.
And Anna was pulling a rueful
face as she understood that her last, late arguments had been
swept away, and that they would indeed remain in the Rhineland
for Christmas . . .

And that was when they heard the feet of many men
approaching the door.

Crunch, crunch, coming closer, coming up the beaten driveway
to the door of the house! Boots and the clink of metal: a file
of men, and there was nowhere else they could be coming to!
The track led only to the door, to the house, to the people inside
it. The women stared at each other in mounting horror.

'Oh, dear Mother of God!' whispered Emilia.

A voice outside called. The noises stopped. One of the maids
looked out of the window.

'Soldiers!' she wailed.

Maria cursed her silently. Of course it was soldiers! What else
could it be? And why couldn't the stupid girl remain calm?

Then the banging started. Someone was hammering at the
door from outside. Footsteps were running in the house. There
were servants in the hall, voices raised in consternation. Still the
banging went on and on, and then stopped all at once as the door
was opened. One of the servants protested. A man spoke German
at him rapidly. And over it all another voice shouted.

'Jürich! Come out, Jürich!'

'Dear Mother of God,' whispered Emilia again, and her face
was white.

Boots – many boots, clumping on the bare boards of the hall.
They were in the house.

'Jürich!'

From somewhere, muffled, Ludwig's voice answered. A door
banged open. A voice began to shout in German – a long stream
of abuse, punctuated by fierce thumps as of a hammer on wood.

'Dear God – have they come to arrest him?'

'What are they doing?'

Maria listened to the loud, ranting voice. She could pick out
some of the words:
Treacherous! Disloyal! Fanatic!
And the
thumping – was that someone slamming his hand on a table? Was
it? Or were they . . .

She was standing, staring at the door to the hall. She heard a
man laugh softly out there, as the litany of rage went on and on.

Dear heaven, what were they doing? Were they arresting
him? Were they beating him? Why? Was he, after all, the man
whom she had been sent to meet? But why had he given her
nothing?

And was it now too late?

She heard Ludwig try to answer. She heard him shouted
down. She heard one of the maids begin to whimper with terror.
Her nerve broke.

'Enough of this,' she muttered. She stepped for the door.

'Lady Maria – no, you must not!' cried Emilia.

'My dear – please!' exclaimed Anna in the same moment.

She ignored both of them. She flung the door open, and with
her eyes blazing she marched down the short corridor to the hall.

The hall was crowded with men in shabby blue uniforms,
with white cross-belts and cockaded hats. In a glance she saw
again how short many of them were: short, but the muskets they
carried were very long in that confined space, with cruel and
rusting bayonets fixed to the barrels. She drew breath. The men
smelled foul.

Someone had come with her. It was Emilia, putting her hand
on her arm.

'Please!' she begged. 'You should not show yourself!'

They were already turning to look at her. She lifted her chin.

'What is going on here?' she demanded.

Eyes, moustaches, crossbelts. Cheeks grizzled with unkempt
whiskers. How old was the man who stood there, feet away,
staring at her? Forty? A haggard twenty-five? She could see the
little lines around his eyes, the black gaps in his mouth where so
many teeth were missing. His boots were not boots, she saw, but
strips of filthy linen wrapped tightly around his feet. And his musket
– the long and horrible musket that he held, with its rusted
ramrod slung beneath the barrel, the point of the bayonet a bare
inch from scoring the wall where she had rested her hand!

All their eyes were on her.

'What is going on here?' she repeated loudly. 'Who is in charge?'

'Please – do not trouble yourself, Lady Maria.'

It was Ludwig's voice!

She could not see him through the soldiers, but he must have
come out of his office at the same time as she arrived in the hall.

'Really, it is nothing,' he called to her.

'Nothing!' she cried, at her most imperious and incredulous,
as she swept the soldiers with her eyes. 'What kind of
nothing
is
this?'

Perhaps she should not have said that. She saw them glower at
her. Any one of them could drag her screaming through the door.
Someone said something, in a voice she did not quite catch.

Three men pushed their way through the crowd: a French
officer, a green-coated clerk, and Ludwig in his shirtsleeves,
mopping his brow.

He looked unhurt. Thank God! He was unhurt!

'Please do not trouble yourself. It – it is a small matter,' Ludwig
said, glancing at the officer and clerk. 'I have undertaken to see to
it.'

The officer nodded curtly. 'Let us go,' he said to his men. 'We
are finished here.'

Without a word more to his host he stalked out of the front
door. The German clerk and the soldiers followed him. Maria
found she was holding her breath as they passed one by one
through the doorway. She counted only nine of them. It had felt
as though there had been fifty. When Ludwig closed the door
softly after the last one, she let the air from her lungs in a long,
shaking sigh.

'What was it?' cried Emilia, hugging Ludwig around the chest.
'Did they hit you? Oh my dear, I thought they would take you
away!'

'They will not, while I am still useful to them,' murmured
Ludwig. 'Do not distress yourself. I am not hurt – apart from
some passing injury to my eardrums. I suspect our clerkly visitor
will have done himself more damage simply by banging on my
table. No, my dear. It is just that some fool has cut down the
Liberty Tree in Knopsdorf. Our General is not pleased, it seems.'

'Not pleased!' Emilia was almost weeping. 'I thought the most
terrible things!'

So did I, thought Maria, looking out of the hall window at the
departing file of soldiers. So did I.

I thought they had come for me.

The Liberty Tree of Knopsdorf, the village nearest to the Jürich
estate, had been a mere sapling, planted two years before to show
the district's faith in equality, fraternity and the rights of man. But
someone had come and cut it down in the night. No one seemed
able to say who had done it, even though the sound of axe-blows
in the small hours must have woken half-a-dozen households and
everyone knew it had happened because Father Septe had been
deported. French messengers and green-coated clerks stamped
angrily into Ludwig Jürich's office again and again in the days
after Christmas, and stamped angrily out again when he told
them there was nothing he could do to find the culprit.

'They see it as their duty to liberate us,' he sighed at table. 'So
if we cling to our princes they must necessarily liberate us by
force. But I have told them we will plant it again tomorrow.'

'Yet it is meaningless!' cried Emilia. 'There is a treaty now. In
a month or two the Elector will be restored, and the people will
simply grub the tree up again.'

'Nothing is certain,' said Ludwig gently 'In the meantime, we
must do what we must do. At least the weather is mild. I do not
believe you ladies will need your cloaks tomorrow.'

In fact, the next day was grey and windy. Maria certainly
thought her cloak would have been a comfort. But Cousin
Ludwig looked at the heavens, and declared so firmly that it was
mild that she felt compelled to leave it behind. They took an
open carriage down to the village, which was less than a mile
away, and dismounted at the edge of a grassy space. A file of
twenty French soldiers with their officer was drawn up at one
side of it. They almost outnumbered the small crowd of villagers,
gathering silently on the other. There were two other carriages
there. One contained Kaus and his wife. The other held Madame
Hofmeister. No one remarked that her husband had not
come.

In the middle of the lawn was a round circle of freshly dug
earth. Presumably this was the very spot where the liberty sapling
had been murdered. Now it was gone, and its roots had been
pulled from the ground, and on the grass beside the bare earth lay
a new sapling, less than six feet long.

Cousin Ludwig nodded to a green-coated clerk who stood
nearby. 'You may begin,' he said.

The French officer and the clerk came forward. The clerk
took a paper from his pocket and, in a voice that barely carried
to where Maria was standing, read an address that hailed the
renewed advent of Liberty in Knopsdorf. The speech was in
French. Looking at the dour faces of the crowd, Maria thought
that less than half of them knew any French at all, and less than
half of those would have been prepared to admit it.

Cousin Ludwig had been wrong, she thought, as she clutched
her thin shawl around her shoulders. The day was proving very
cold indeed.

The clerk finished. The French officer stepped forward and,
speaking fairly and in rather good German, promised the
friendship and support of the Republic to all who yearned to
make themselves free. The Republic made war upon the castles,
but would leave the cottages in peace. Silence greeted his
words.

A peasant with a spade dug the soft earth away. Another lifted
the sapling into the hole, and held it straight while the first firmed
the earth back at its roots. The officer spoke a series of
commands. The French soldiers lifted their muskets and fired
them into the air. At another command the muskets returned to
the salute. The officer waved his arm. Unaccompanied by music,
voices straining in the open air, the soldiers sang.

Amour sacré de la Patrie, conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs.
iberie, liberté chérie, combats avec tes défenseurs; combats avec
tes défenseurs.
Sous nos drapeaux, que la victoire accoure à tes mâles accents;
Que tes ennemis expirants voient ton triomphe et notre gloire!

Aux armes, citoyens! Formez vos battaillons!
Marchons, marchons, qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

Beside her, Ludwig Jürich began to applaud. Clap, clap, clap
went his hands, sounding alone until at last the ripple of clapping
spread among the villagers. Then the ceremony was over. The
French soldiers grouped in a huddle by themselves, glancing now
and then at the people as they dispersed. The Kauses and Madame
Hofmeister clustered with the Jürichs for a few words, and then
climbed into their carriages.

'My dear, I think Anna is cold,' said Ludwig suddenly to
Emilia. 'Do take her back in the carriage. I shall walk, for I need
the air. Perhaps Lady Maria will accompany me?'

He bowed to her.

'Oh – but is Maria not cold too?' said Emilia.

'I shall be delighted,' declared Maria boldly. 'I shall only be
cold if I stand still.'

They bundled Anna and Emilia, still protesting, into the
carriage. Then she took Ludwig's arm and, followed by his
servant, began to walk back up to the house.

They went in silence for the first hundred yards. At
the edge of the little wood above the village, Ludwig
stopped.

'I have been unpardonably overconfident,' he said. 'It is
certainly cold! Heinrich, run up to the house and return as
quickly as you can with a cloak for Lady Maria.'