The Lightstep (45 page)

'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.

There had been women who had watched Him die like this,
just as she was watching Him now. There had been Mary his
mother. And there had been Mary of Magdalene, a younger
woman, fallen in the eyes of her people, who had come to watch
her hope extinguished on the cross. And now there was Maria
von Adelsheim, also young, also fallen, looking up at the head. At
the man on the cross, and the man on the hearth.

'Before this,' the man said suddenly, 'there was nothing but the
war. Now there is the war, and there is also you.'

He stated it as if it were a choice, and one that he regretted.

'The war made it possible for me to come,' she said.

Then she wished that she had said
for me to come to you.
He nodded. And he did not ask her what she meant.

'To enter paradise, we must destroy it,' he said.

The war had made it possible for her to come. It had brought
them together. And now, or very soon, it would tear them apart.
And it would tear all Erzberg apart too. How many Michels and
Marias were there in the city, talking or thinking these things
with one another? But they had been given no choice. He had
chosen, and so had she. Why should they pity themselves? She
remembered the face of the dead Frenchman, the eyes of the
doctor's wife:
How could you?
The man in agony on the wall had
sacrificed only himself. But the man at the grate must condemn
them all. No, he was not Christ, and she must not think it. It was
blasphemous and stupid. And she was not Mary Magdalene.

But there had been another woman in the story, a woman
who had sent to her husband as he sat in judgement.

The man at the grate glanced at one more paper. His eyes
followed a line, and then a few more. Then he shrugged and fed
it carefully into the fire. It was an act curiously like washing his
hands.

She drew breath and checked herself. She felt her hands grip
upon her knees.

'Michel.'

He paused at the sound of his name.

'There are . . . innocent people in the city,' she said. 'Even now.'

For a moment he was still, staring at the air in front of him.
Then he said, 'I know.'

Suddenly, angrily, he snatched a paper from the floor and
scrunched it into a ball, which he jammed into the low flames.
For a moment it sulked there, still obstinately paper in the glowing
mass. Then with a bright flare of flame, it changed into an
instant of glory. But already Michel was gathering up the other
papers, balling them with savage movements of his fists, and
adding them to the fire. One by one they went and the flutter of
the flames grew into a brief roar. Maria rose from her place, took
the face of Christ from the wall and offered it to him. That went,
too, frame and all. On his hands and knees he watched it until the
light wood caught and the face began to blacken with oil-smoke.
Then he rose to his feet.

For an instant they looked at each other, either side of the
hearth. Then – and she never remembered who moved first –
they stepped towards one another, and his arms were around her
neck, and hers were around his chest. And his ribs were strong as
oak beneath his tunic, and she put her head to his breast and
heard the tap, tap of his heart against her ear.

'Oh,' she whispered. And she could not say
my darling,
or
sweetheart,
or
my dear,
because she had never used those words before.
She said,'Whatever you do. Whatever you do. I will be as close as
I can. I promise.'

'Yes,' he said, and bowed his head so that his cheek rested on
her hair.

'There may be a chance,' he said. 'There may yet be.'

'Hush,' she answered. 'You should sleep. You should sleep if you
possibly can.'

But still she clung to him, and the thumping of her heart and
of his seemed far louder to her than the distant cannon from the
wall.

From the Bamberg Gate Wéry looked out into the dawn. The
night had been paling steadily for the last hour. Now the lines
of the world could be seen again, colourless under the sky.

Some three hundred paces away across the field a long earthwork
had been thrown up. Over the rim of the brown wall poked
a line of gun-muzzles. He swung his field glass along the row,
noting the size of the bore and the carriages – big pieces, all of
them. He counted twelve. A similar work had been built to his
left, opposite the north-east bastion. And there again there were
heavy cannon, although from this angle he could not count them
easily. Say, twelve again. Further to left and right more batteries
had been constructed – field guns this time, he thought: six– and
eight-pounders, ready to pepper the defences and bombard the
town. But it was opposite the breach, his weakest point, that the
enemy had deployed their greatest strength.

He brought his telescope back to focus on the siege guns.
There was something almost peaceful about that cold row of
heavy muzzles: those little black 'o's that cooed silently as he
swept his glass along them.
Death,
they said.
Death. There is nothing
to do any more.

Here, then, was the reality of the message from Maximilian
Jürich, which he had fed onto the fire last night. The Army of
Germany had been reinforced with siege guns. Here they were.
The message had not stopped them from coming. Nothing he or
anyone else could have done would have stopped them. And
nothing the city gunners had done last night had prevented them
from taking position.

'That's where we were firing, over there,' said an officer. 'By
the farm. You can see the ground's torn up with shot.'

'That's where the lights were,' someone answered him. 'We
saw them.'

'Decoys, then. We've wasted a night's worth of powder, that's
all.'

Only grumbles answered this.

'They've trenched the road, look.'

Wéry looked, and raised his glass again. Yes, there were low
earthworks opposite the gate, further off, but still within midrange
for the city guns. There was a battery of field guns there,
and infantry. Further away still, a mass of cavalry – a regiment at
least – was circling into position beside the road.

'They fear a sortie,' said a voice near him. That was the country
gentleman from Zerbach.

'They don't fear it,' said another, gloomily. 'They just want to
be ready for it if it comes.'

'Where's old Uhnen, anyway? Shouldn't he be here?'

'Ssh! Haven't you heard?'

The voices dropped to whispers. Wéry ignored them. Softly,
he closed his telescope.

The contempt of it was staggering. He remembered, years ago,
watching from a church tower in Mainz as the Prussians had
begun to dig their siege lines. They had started well out of
cannon shot from the walls, with long circling earthworks to
protect their positions. They had pushed the garrison back in
from the outer villages and works. And day after day they had dug
their way forward, in zigzag trenches, to a line two to three
hundred yards short of the main defences. They had sited their
batteries on the heights and had begun the bombardment in
earnest. And then they had dug forward again, aiming to build
new battery sites within fifty paces of the walls, from which their
guns could pound the defences at close range until they
crumbled.

This enemy was bothering with none of that. Augereau knew
the town was held not by twenty thousand regulars but by only
a few thousand ill-trained militia. He had thrown his main
batteries well forward, shrugging his shoulders at the risk of
cannon shot from the walls. A single low bank of earth trailed
backwards from each enemy position, presumably covering a
shallow trench in which people and supplies could be brought
forward in some shelter. As for preparations against a sortie . . .

'Guns ready, sir,' came the call from the bastion door, behind
and below.

'Tell them to wait,' he murmured.

He measured the distances with his eye. The batteries were
closer to the gate than to their reinforcements, certainly. A
running man could be on them in minutes. But the field battery
and the infantry dug in opposite the gate would have to be
attacked as well. And that farm was a strong point. He would have
to get a sizeable force out onto the road and formed up before
the wall. If those cavalry closed in quickly . . .

How many would he lose if it went wrong? Practically the
whole force. Four or five hundred. It would rip the guts out of
the defence. And even if he overran the guns what could he do
but spike them and blow up whatever powder they had brought
forward? He would win a day, or two days at best, before the
enemy made good what he had done.

This was the truth. You could dream of heroic deeds, imagine
cunning attacks and ambushes, and win the war you constructed
in your mind, with brilliance and with glory. But under the grey,
real skies there was no answer to overwhelming force. As well
shout at the wind.

'Commander?'

He should fire on the batteries. No doubt there would be
other targets during the day, as the enemy extended his works and
brought supplies forward. But they would be pounding his guns.
He must pound theirs – until they saw storming parties massing
in forward positions.
They won't do that in daylight. It will be tonight,
or dawn tomorrow . . .

As he hesitated, a puff of smoke flew from the muzzle of the
left-hand gun in the battery before him. A moment later, and
almost together, came the crump of the shot and a small fountain
of rubble rising lazily on the slope below the breach, a little to his
left.

'Short,' said someone.

'Yes,' he said, and did not add
but it's heavier than anything we've
got.

'Ready?' he called over his shoulder, and then remembered
that they had already told him they were.

'On the batteries, Commander?'

'Yes, I think . . . No, wait.'

There was movement down at the enemy battery. Men were
clambering up onto the earthwork, lifting something pale,
waving it . . .

'Flag of truce, sir.'

There it was, a great, dirty, grey rag, dancing in the field of his
glass. His arms seemed to be trembling with tiredness. He could
not steady his telescope. He lowered it, and squinted with his
naked eye at the pale fleck in the distance.

Well, well. So there was indeed a chance after all. A chance to
do something.

Now he must decide whether he would do it.

'Very good,' he said. 'Find something white to wave back.'

'Horsemen on the road, sir. Two of them.'

Did they know his mind so well already? They had not even
waited for his signal.

'Very good,' he said again. 'Blindfold them and bring them up
to the citadel. And pass the word to quarter commanders. There
will be a conference at nine o'clock.'

'Nine o'clock, Commander?' That was still two hours away.

'It will do our unwelcome guests no harm to kick their heels
for a while,' he said briskly. 'In the meantime, keep a sharp eye on
those batteries. If they start building up their earthworks, give
them a warning shot. And if they keep at it you hit them with
everything we have.'

And he made his way off the platform, and slowly down the
bastion steps, picking his way stiffly like an old, old man.

'Bah,' said Colonel Lanard, as his blindfold was removed in the
courtyard of the Celesterburg. 'These hoods! When you are my
prisoner, Wéry, I shall make you stand and wear one from dawn
to noon. Perhaps then you will be more gentle.'

Beyond him, his stony-faced, grey-haired captain dismounted,
exactly as he had done the day before.

'Forgive me,' said Wéry dryly. 'But your general continues to
threaten the town, and I see no reason to relax my guard.'

'Do you not? Well, we shall see. May we go in?'

'I regret that it may be a little while yet before I am able to
assemble my quarter commanders.'

'It is fortuitous. My orders are to speak with you alone in the
first instance.'

Alone. Sometimes this Frenchman seemed to read his mind.

'Of course we can move to a full session after this,' said Lanard.
'But alone, to begin with. I must insist.'

'And if I refuse?'

'My orders are to return at once to our lines.'

'I see.' Wéry feigned a further hesitation. Then he shrugged.
'It will change nothing. But if you are willing to repeat yourself
in front of my officers, I am amenable to it.'

'Bravo.'

They made their way up to the Prince's corridor and along to
the antechamber once more. A few of the quarter commanders
were already waiting outside the door. Their eyes were sullen, and
bewildered. Why this delay? they asked. Why not just get on with
it? None of them relished the thought of another fruitless parley,
any more than a condemned man could wish to hear his death
sentence read a second time.

All the same, he resented the way they looked at him. And that
made it easier to brush them aside.

'I must beg your patience, gentlemen. The conference will not
be held until nine. There is time for you to breakfast if you have
not already done so.'

They left the officers and the stiff-faced French captain to stare
at one another in the corridor and closed the door behind them.
The antechamber was quiet, and in its emptiness it seemed very
long. The full grey light of winter poured in from the windows.
They sat. The scrape of their chairs was loud in the
room.

'Well?' began Wéry.

Lanard was looking at the door of the inner chamber. There
was something longing in his expression that was almost comical.
But the door was shut fast in their faces, and he must have known
better than to court another rebuff. He turned back to the table,
rubbed his eyes and yawned hugely.

'Pardon me,' he said affably, when he had finished.

'I fear you have not slept well, Colonel,' said Wéry woodenly.

'And no doubt you are beautifully rested,' said Lanard. 'But I
have spent many hours with my general overnight. He is not at
all pleased with you, I fear. Nevertheless, there came a time
towards morning when he was more ready to hear what I had to
say.'

'And?'

'Well, you have observed our preparations for yourself . . .'

Wéry leaned back in his chair and lifted his eyes to the ceiling.
It seemed a long way above his head. Chains of tiny gilt scrollwork
adorned the edges of the ceiling and curled around the
hooks that held the chandeliers. Some hand had done that,
labouring with great care for many days. In all the times he had
visited this room he had never seen it before.

'. . . To tell the truth, I think my general has not yet made up
his mind how to proceed. He may choose to dig his way in from
our current position. Or he may choose simply to lean against
your fence and see if it falls over. Much may depend on how your
gunners do. So far we would judge that they are willing, but
perhaps not so very accurate. Even when we give them something
to aim at . . .'

'I am not disposed to listen to threats this morning,' Wéry
murmured.

'Of course you are not. But I am not threatening you. I merely
review facts of which we are both aware.'

'Very well. Proceed if you must.'

'Well, then. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a week's time, we
shall have topped your barricade. So. We understand you mean to
fight through the town. We judge that you are capable of it. You
see how your reputation has spread, Wéry. And I dare say that
your people will continue to fight until you yourself are knocked
over. After which it will indeed be all over. But consider. Your
men are farmers, burghers, housewives with rolling pins, perhaps.
Very soon we will know the ground as well as you. You must lose
four or five for every one you kill of ours . . .'

'Less, perhaps.'

'I do not think so. But what I am sent to say to you is that you
have a responsibility . . .'

The light creak of a door opening interrupted him. He looked
over his shoulder. Wéry sat up. It was not the door to the passage
outside. It was one of the big leaves that opened onto the Prince's
chamber.

'I beg your pardon, gentlemen,' said Maria von Adelsheim.
'But I wish to join you.'

'Ah,' said Lanard, evidently perplexed.

Wéry looked at her. His first feeling was a simple leap of joy
that she was there. But immediately it mixed with other things.
I
wish to join you.
That was a command, not a request. This was an
Imperial Knight, he thought. She must be almost the very last
one at liberty in Erzberg. What was he to say?
I am afraid it is
impossible.
It was impossible to say that to her. But if she stayed . . .

At the sight of her he felt, strengthening within him, his
resolve to do what he was planning to do. She was herself: one of
the few good things that had happened to him since he had left
Brabant all those years ago. Yet she was not only herself. In her
eyes and face and thoughts he could see all the people of the city
of Erzberg, huddled under their roofs, waiting for the fire.

'I do not know that my orders . . .' said Lanard. He stopped,
and looked at Wéry.

'What were you doing in there?' Wéry asked.

'Waiting,' she said. 'I had heard there would be a conference,
so I came down. I would like to sit with you. I shall say nothing,
I promise.'

'Of course,' he said.

Lanard shrugged. Then, elaborately, he rose to his feet, until
Maria had made her way around to take the chair beside Wéry.
Wéry supposed that he should have risen too. Really, he was too
tired to remember everything. But he was acutely conscious of
the rustle of borrowed silk as she took her place near, so near
beside him.