Dismissed? He would have dismissed himself, for sure.
He would have torn up his commission in his own face, yelling, 'Idiot! Fool! Half-baked ideas!'
'You had the chance, and ruined it!'
He had had the chance – exactly the chance he had prayed for. Now that it had vanished, he could see it so clearly: the chance to step up from the endless, meaningless drudgery of spy work to strike a real blow! A city armed and defiant! A fight to the bitter end! The Prince had been willing to listen. He had even given Wéry the cue. And then they had all been out-talked by the quick-tongued First Minister. The army had been made to look foolish. Balcke was declared a villain, fit only to be investigated. And what Wéry hated most of all was that his own wits had been slower than Gianovi's.
Politics!
He understood, dimly, that the other officers were not displeased with him. Balcke had even backed him. Altmantz, who normally averted his eyes at the sight of Wéry, was now almost friendly. But that was beside the point. What they thought did not matter. They did not see things as clearly as he. Bergesrode did. Bergesrode, who had prepared the Prince for this meeting and had made sure Wéry was included, would understand that he had failed. Now Bergesrode was waiting for him.
The face of the priest was like 'weathered sandstone, hard and lined and pitted. His thick, dark brows sloped naturally, so that he was forever frowning. The smudges beneath his eyes matched his brows so perfectly that they might have been reflections in some pool. All four dark marks slanted towards the bridge of his nose, as if they were the remains of a diagonal, ashen cross that dour saints had traced there at his birth, to show that the child was one of their own. His hair was black and his priest's robe was black, and he never wore anything else.
'Well?' said Bergesrode.
'I said what I believed to be true,' Wéry replied stiffly. 'I still believe it.'
'I don't mean that. Your report about Hoche. Can he rely on it?'
'Oh.' Wéry gathered his thoughts. 'Yes, I believe so.'
'I need more than that.'
When Wéry hesitated, he said,'Come on. We can talk as we walk. But I cannot be left behind.' He turned to follow his master.
'You want to know the sources?' Wéry said, hurrying to keep up.
'Tell me no more than you need to. But yes.'
'There is a merchant in Kassel, who has contracts to supply one of the French divisions. There are two peddlers. There is also a money-lender whose clients include French officers.'
'A Jew?' Bergesrode looked at him sharply.
'Does it matter? Their officers visit him, eat with him, get drunk and talk.'
(With Bergesrode, as with Balcke. Keep to the truth, short and direct. Loathe his every instinct, churchman and aristocrat, but loathe in silence. On the one point that mattered most, they were agreed.)
Bergesrode walked a pace or two, brooding. At length he shrugged. 'The end justifies the means. So this is chit-chat among the officers at Wetzlar. Is that all?'
'I have confirmation from the Rhine.'
'Who do you have beyond the Rhine?'
'I will not say.' And as Bergesrode opened his mouth, Wéry cut in again. 'He is not doing it for the Prince's gold. I do not owe you his rank or name.'
'I have to trust what you say he says,' snapped Bergesrode. 'I have to advise the Prince to trust it too.'
'He can be trusted. The difficulty is bringing his news back to Erzberg.'
'And how do you do that?'
'So far, by crossing the Rhine myself.'
'You could have been arrested!'
'I have not been.'
'Yet. But if you carry on with that we will lose you. You must not go into French-held territory again. You must think of a better way.'
'I'm trying to!'
And that was weakness, that outburst: weakness shown to Bergesrode, who knew no weakness. Wéry was still struggling to adjust, still wondering why there had been no word about dismissal or even reprimand. Perhaps the question of dismissal had never crossed Bergesrode's mind. A chance had been lost – what of it? Continue, with the tools that you have. Discard them only if you think you can find better ones.
In some ways Wéry wished he could be more like Bergesrode himself.
But what a chance it had been!
So, no dismissal. Or not yet. Perhaps the Prince, strolling ahead of them with Gianovi at his side, would remember him at some point in the weeks ahead and pronounce his sentence then. In the meantime, he must continue.
'Very good,' said Bergesrode. 'But from now on you must double your efforts. You must watch Hoche like a hawk. We need his correspondence, his plans, his preparations – anything you can learn about his intentions. If he is going to move against us, we need as much warning as you can give.'
'I understand,' said Wéry, sorting in his mind the possible from the impossible among Bergesrode's demands.
(Hoche's plans? As well whistle for the moon.)
(Correspondence? Well, if there were a corrupt clerk, and the money to bribe him with. But could he find either?)
No. It would be counting tents, watching wagon-loads, listening to what Bergesrode called the chit-chat, sorting fact from rumour. No army, not even the French, could move anywhere without some sign of stirring.
They turned the corner of the palace. The Prince and First Minister were some fifty paces ahead of them, approaching the gate to the inner courtyard. A coach, rolling out of the archway, stopped at the sight of the pair. Its occupant, a long, languid young man in a yellow coat, climbed out of the carriage to accost them.
'D'Erles,' murmured Bergesrode. 'Our causus belli!
'Do you need to join them?'
Bergesrode shook his head. 'Let the First Minister catch it, whatever it is. It will serve him for forcing himself in on a meeting to which he was not invited. In any case, with d'Erles it will be about his lodgings or his allowance. It won't be high policy.'
'I'm surprised he doesn't ask the Countess.'
Bergesrode glanced at him coldly. Wéry shrugged. No one would admit to him that the Countess Wilhelmina Pancak-Schonberg – the huge and brainless noblewoman who dominated the Prince's court – was the Prince's mistress. But what other explanation for her influence could there be? And she doted on the handsome d'Erles. It galled Wéry to think that his final confrontation with Paris might come about not for the sake of Freedom, or Truth, but because an eccentric female aristocrat was besotted with a feckless, self-centred, exploitative young man whom France had every right to hate.
Bergesrode watched the group ahead of them. After a moment he said, 'There will be agitators.'
'Agitators?'
'Republican agents. Illuminati. Sent to foment discontent here.'
Wéry shrugged again. 'If I hear anything, of course I will report it. But they won't be in Wetzlar. They'll be in the city.'
'Then look in the city.'
'Isn't that for the city police . . .'
'Yes, and for you, too. This is important. The Illuminati are the danger. They are the ones who controlled the Revolution. Abbé Barruel had proved it. Never forget that.'
Wéry shook his head. He had helped to organize a revolution himself, in Brabant. He had walked in Paris in the heady days of '92, and early '93 when Louis XVI had gone to the guillotine. Not once had he come across any sign that anyone professing to be an Illuminatus (or freemason or Martinist or Rosicrucian, for that matter) had secretly steered events to their conclusion. Not once had he even thought of them, until he had come to take service in the Empire where the vast and fearful Catholic Church still held sway, peering at the signs of its destruction and seeking its enemies in the shadows.
Control the Revolution? No one had controlled it at all. That was how it had become what it had become.
And in any case, how was he, a foreigner and barely a gentleman, to penetrate the political salons and lodges of Erzberg and learn their secrets?
'The French messengers that came yesterday went into the city too,' said Bergesrode. 'We know one of them called at a house in the Saint Emil quarter. That's where this story about Balcke will have come from. And this morning a crowd pelted the coach of one of the d'Erles party . . .'
'Do you think it's true, that story about Balcke?'
'Weren't you there?'
'Not at the action itself.'
'That may be very lucky for you. If it is true, Balcke is finished and so is anyone who was with him. We will find out. At the same time we will stop this leakage into and out of the city. It is ridiculous that French messengers can come and go where they please before we are aware of it. From now on, passports will only be issued or countersigned by the Prince's office or by the First Minister. The Prince has signed a decree to that effect. Stop a moment.'
They stood under the shadow of the Celesterburg arch, looking in to the courtyard. Half-way across the cobbles the Prince was making his way slowly towards the palace steps, now surrounded by a small crowd of notables vying for his attention.
'Best we do not let too many people see us talking,' murmured Bergesrode. 'He doesn't want it known that we are consulting the army at present.'
'I need passports for myself and my couriers. How am I to get them if . . .'
'Come and see me when you need them.'
'Your antechamber is too damned crowded . . .'
'That is blasphemy, Wéry'
'. . . Whenever I go up there, I find half of Erzberg waiting for you or the Prince. And they can hear every word we say!'
'You don't come early enough. Come at dawn. I'll give you a pass for the side door.' He caught Wéry's look. 'Oh we'll be there. Don't worry. But come ready to talk about the Illuminati. Also, I want to know more about these ideas of yours.'
'Which ones?'
'What you said out there, on the bastion. He liked that.'
Wéry stared at him. 'You think he would do it?'
'That's as may be.'
'Didn't he decide it was impossible?'
'The only thing he will have decided this morning will be that he has even fewer competent officers than he thought he had. And the only thing we can be sure of is that if the French come, it will not be that fool Knuds who will be commanding in the citadel! Nothing else is certain. That's why your work matters. And your ideas.'
With a nod of dismissal, he set out across the palace courtyard. His black robes blew around him as he hurried in the wake of his master.