The Lightstep (11 page)

For long moments Wéry watched that black speck moving
imperceptibly away, until it melded into the greyness of the Vater
and left him with nothing.

Nothing. He stood in the colourless night, and the cold wind.
There was nothing at all, now, except a purpose.

He drew a long breath. Then he brought his right hand across
to touch his heart.

A friend was gone. But also a distraction. Now, in his loss, the
way was open to pursue the struggle all the more. That was how
he must think of it.

From now on, all his mind and all his strength must be spent
on the fight against the French republic. Come peace, come war,
that was all he had to do. Without question, without turning
aside. He would eat and sleep only to sustain himself in it. He
would speak only to further it. He would spend his life doing it;
and his dying, too. He would march into hell for it, if he had to.

Friendship was distraction. There must be no more of it. Love
was corrosion. When the world was gone to the devil, even these
things became the devil's tools. The devil would lie, cheat, find
any way or weakness that he could to turn a man aside. Only
hatred, as hard and sharp as steel, served the purpose now.
Only through purity of purpose could the world be changed.

'Come on,' said Fernhausen. 'We had best go up and report
how it went.'

They climbed into the carriage and resumed their journey up
to the Celesterburg. The road curled beneath the fortress-palace.
The ramparts towered over them, blacker than the night, lined
with silent guns. The carriage slowed for the last slope. The 'walls
flung back the flat rattle of the wheels, bloodless and spiteful.
They rounded the northeast point of the citadel and approached
the gate. The vast bastions spread to left and right about them,
like the arms of a monstrous mother stretched wide to welcome
her children home.

Lady Adelsheim, Maria and Franz were in Adelsheim to
receive Albrecht's body when it arrived. They remained
there for the summer. But in September, when most noble
families moved from their estates to the city once more, they
did the same. In Erzberg, the season was beginning.

The season was beginning, but Maria was not to dance. She was
not to look gay. She was not to join her friends in the ballroom. She
was to sit demurely in the salons and drawing rooms, let the society
of Erzberg see her, and let them remember that Albrecht had been
lost. There would be no picnics or soirees or trips to the theatre. Her
marriage to young Julius Rother-Konisrat was postponed until the
spring. Mourning for her brother, Lady Adelsheim said, was more
important than all these things.

And day after day, she must wear black.

Do not pout, Maria. It is the least you can do for him. Be thankful
after all that you did not love him as I did.

Lady Adelsheim still admitted poets and philosophers to her
house in the Saint Emil quarter. But other notables of Erzberg
came more often, especially her cousin Canon Rother-Konisrat
and his hangers-on. And they shook their heads and spoke in low
voices in the intervals between music being played or poetry read
to the room.

'How sad the times are! Oh, nothing can equal your loss, my
dear. But did you know Lady Reisecken has also . . .'

'. . . Did you see d'Erles and his émigré friends at the Canon's
soiree yesterday? I swear that half of them were drunk before they
arrived! Fresh from some gambling-house, I suppose. I imagine
they had left this one in ruins, too . . .'

'Really, it is shameful, after we have suffered for them . . .'

'. . . Oh, the Prince is quite persuaded that I must have my
lease,' said Lady Jenz-Hohenwitz. 'He has said so. But the palace
never produces it. I believe that villain Gianovi is to blame. It is
impossible to trust Italians.'

'Indeed,' Mother said. 'Oh, indeed. Who could possibly trust
an Italian with the running of the state?'

'Oh, Constanze. Really!'

'My dear, I have only repeated what you said . . .'

Not even Mother would criticize the Prince aloud. It was
always easier and safer to speak against the army, or against the
foreign-born First Minister. But Lady Adelsheim would not
let the others forget that behind all the organs of the little state
stood the one man who was responsible for them all, and whom
she blamed most for the death of her son.

The Saint Emil quarter had been built within the last hundred
years. The streets were all paved, and the houses were broad-fronted,
broad-windowed, and most stood apart from one
another with small gardens about them. The Adelsheim house,
which had come into the family with Lady Adelsheim's marriage,
was decorated with busts of classic figures, reliefs and elaborate
lintels above each window. On the lowest floor were the working
rooms. On the first, reached by steps from the street, were the
main reception rooms. Above these were the main bedrooms, and
also Lady Adelsheim's study, and the little room on the other side
of the landing which served as a library. The library was walled
with bookcases that rose from floor to ceiling, and the bookcases
were crammed with leather-bound volumes, most of which had
been bought by Lady Adelsheim from the incomes settled on her
by the Rother family. There was little colour in the room to
relieve the relentless browns of the book-spines, and if it had not
been for the big, square, six-paned window it would have been a
dark place indeed. The only pieces of furniture in the room were
a chair and a settee, and only on the settee, placed under the
window, was it possible to read without a light.

Maria was on the settee, and in a state of rebellion.

To 'improve her mind' that morning, Mother had given her
the house copy of Kant's
Perpetual Peace.
Maria had leafed
through it, and found that it was a short, dry work, full of
prescriptions for a world without war. It was exactly the sort
of thing that interested Mother these days. It was exactly the
sort of thing that did not interest Maria.

Maria did not want a world without war. She wanted Albrecht
back. If she could not have Albrecht back, she did not want anything.
Most certainly she did not want Kant, whom Mother
called 'The Sage of Königsberg'. Maria half-remembered that
there had been a time when it had been supposed that Kant
would meet with the Frenchman Sieyès, and that between
them the two great thinkers would resolve the differences
between their peoples. But no meeting had happened. Perhaps
the two men had sensed that no resolution was possible.
Perhaps they, too, had swallowed their crumbs of guilt for Alba's
death.

She was wondering whether she was ready to read his letters
again.

He had written to her many times in the years when they
were parted. She had saved every letter, carrying them with her
even to the family's brief exile in Bohemia and back again. They
were here in Erzberg now, in a chest in her room on the top
floor, tied in a great bundle with ribbon. She had not touched
them since the news had come. But she had promised herself that
she would – one day, when she was strong enough to look at his
words once more. She was not sure that she was, yet. She could
imagine herself climbing to her room, opening the chest, and
then, as her fingers touched the ribbon, hesitating at last. She
feared the emotion she might feel on reading them. And
she feared disappointment if, in the numbness of loss, she felt
nothing after all.

So she had not gone to her room. Not yet. She sat in the
library, turning
Perpetual Peace
in her hands without opening
the pages.

She was still sitting there when a footstep sounded on the stairs.
It was Dietrich, the house master, climbing up from the floor
below. She heard him stop when he reached the landing.

'What is it, Dietrich?' she called softly.

He shuffled to the library door.

'A caller, Lady Maria.'

'For me?'

More hesitation. So yes, it was for her. But Dietrich had been
wondering whether he should consult Mother about it first.
Mother was writing letters in her study on the opposite side of
the landing, just a few paces away. She would certainly assume
that she should be consulted about any caller for her daughter
whose admission to the house was not absolutely straightforward.
Even so, Dietrich was not eager to interrupt her. He knew she
would immediately think of several more things that he should
be doing or should have done by now.

A caller for her; and one about whom Dietrich felt it might
be necessary to consult first. Maria's mind jumped to a
conclusion.

'Is it Captain von Uhnen, Dietrich?'

(Poor Karl! She had not spoken with him in a year, since he
had ridden all the way to Bohemia on his leave to go down on
his knees to her in the orangery of the chateau at Effenpanz.
Sir,
you force me to remind you of certain facts. My marriage is agreed upon,
and waits only for a suitable time. I am gratified by the sentiments you
express, but there is no possibility that I could entertain them.
Of course
there was not, neither then or now. But she still hated to think
that she had hurt him so.)

'No, Lady Maria.'

'Who?'

'A captain, yes . . . But he's foreign.'

Foreign?

She was puzzled. She could think of no foreign captain in
Erzberg who might conceivably call on her. Unless . . .

'Captain Wéry, then?' (Surely not!)

'No, Lady Maria.'

He hesitated again. She looked her question at him.

'It was Lang, I think, Lady Maria . . . Or – or Lander . . .'

'You may show him in, Dietrich,' she said firmly. 'Whoever he
is.'

If it had been Wéry, she would have had to decline – however
reluctantly. Mother would never have permitted that man to
enter her house again. Mother might say that it was wrong to
admit this stranger too – especially since he did not seem to carry
a card, and his name was so unmemorable that Dietrich had forgotten
it on his way up the stairs! But Maria was happy to be
distracted. The grey spirit of Kant only encouraged her towards
revolt.

'Up here, Lady Maria?'

'Is Father in the salon?'

'Yes, Lady Maria.'

Father would be napping at this hour.

'Then yes – up here, please.'

She picked up her book, but did not read. Her ears followed
Dietrich's slow progress down the stairs; the murmured conversation
at the door; and then more steps on the stairs – this time
the double beat of two sets of feet climbing towards the library.
She put aside her book, and composed herself.

'Captain Lanard, of the Army of France,' said Dietrich
woodenly.

If a monster with two heads had leaped through the door,
Maria could not have been more surprised. She stared at the
young man in the blue uniform who stepped in, carrying his hat
under his arm.

He was a little under medium height, with dark hair pulled
back into a neat queue, and dark, arching brows that marked the
paleness of his skin with the same emphasis as a beauty spot. His
features were delicate, and his eyes, a clear blue-grey, showed
surprise when he saw her.

He bowed. 'Pardon me. I asked to be admitted to Lady Maria
von Adelsheim. Am I correct that you are she?'

'You are correct, sir . . .' she said, recovering herself. 'My
mother, the Lady Constanze von Adelsheim, is in the house. If
your business is in fact with her . . .'

'On the contrary. I believe you are the author of a letter which
reached my General early this summer. Is it correct?'

Letter?

The letter she had written! That had been months ago!

'I have been charged to bring you his reply,' he said.

There was a paper in his hands, held out towards her. She
stared at it.

'Please,' he said formally.

She took it. The direction read:'To Maria Constanze Elisabeth
von Adelsheim, residing in Erzberg or Adelsheim'.

Her first, almost childish reaction, was to glance past him out
at the landing. Just a few paces away, behind the study door,
Mother was sitting at her desk with her pen in her hand. Mother
could hear any loud noise from where she sat. She might even
know there was a caller in the house.

Maria had never told her about the letter she had written the
day the news about Albrecht came.

And then she recalled herself. What Mother would say did not
matter. Surely it did not, beside the letter in her hands. This letter,
which Alba's killers had sent her! And she thought fleetingly that
she had not expected any reply, that she did not need one, and
that really it would be best in many ways if she could dispose of
it quickly and have this unwanted visitor leave her as soon as
possible. She stared at the letter in her fingers, and her heart was
numb.

She did not believe what she was holding. She did not want
to open it, to read what the murderers had written to her.

'Please,' she murmured. 'Sit for a moment.'

There was no device upon the seal. She broke it. There was a
single page, with only a few lines of writing upon it.

Madame,

Your appeal has reached me. According to the senior surviving
officer of the 2nd battalion of the 16th demi-brigade
of the line, a parley was sent to inform the Erzberg troops of
the armistice before the action at Hersheim began. This was
rejected by the Erzberg commander. The 2nd battalion was
then obliged to defend itself.

Words cannot describe the regret I too feel at the loss of life
that ensued.

Lazare Hoche

'Thank you,' Maria said, speaking rather quickly as she folded
the letter. 'I am grateful at least to have had some acknowledgement
at last, and I thank you for bringing it. I hope your journey
was not difficult . . . .'

She broke off, and looked at the page again. She had not
been expecting any reply at all. Yet now that she had one she was
angry at how short and inadequate it was.
Your appeal has reached
me.
She had not been appealing to him. She had been telling
him . . .

. . .
a parley was sent to inform the Erzberg troops of the armistice . . .

She stared at the sentence – the one sentence in that short letter
that meant anything – while the world turned silently on its
head around her.

. . . a parley was sent to inform the Erzberg troops of the armistice
before the action at Hersheim began . . .

She opened her mouth.

'Your General wishes to absolve himself from the blame,' she
said.

'He is telling the truth, my Lady.'

'No doubt he is telling me what he has been told, and what
he chooses to believe. But why should he have been told the
truth? This officer . . .' she looked at the paper again. 'This officer
of the second battalion – is he to be relied upon?'

There was a slight hesitation. 'I believe so, my lady.'

'You know him?'

'I do indeed. He is myself.'

She looked up, into the blue-grey gaze from that pale face. He
was smiling ruefully, as if being the officer in question was a misfortune,
but not one that he could apologize for. She saw again
how his dark brows arched above his face, and she wondered for
an instant if there was not something evil about them.

He was one of the men who had killed Albrecht.

They had sent her one of the men who killed him!

And . . .

How could they do this?

How could he
smile
at her?

'Does it please you, sir,' she said, 'to – to confront the sister of
a man for whose death you are responsible?' She knew that her
voice was shaking.

He frowned slightly, but as if he were puzzled rather than
angry.