Even in his drunken nonchalance there was a tremor in his voice. Illuminati. Who had secretly inspired the Revolution? Who were determined to bring down the Mother Church? Had you never seen one? That only proved how clever they were.
Wéry said nothing. He had seen two revolutions without laying eyes on a single Illuminatus. Before coming to Erzberg he would have sworn with confidence that the Illuminati no longer existed, and that even if they did they were an irrelevance. And yet time and again the word was spoken here, with a conviction that sometimes shook his own.
'I could have told her how much she owes me,' said Uhnen absently. 'How much all her house owes me. Maybe I should . . .'
'It's probably just gossip.'
'That it is not! I was there!'
Wéry drew a long breath. For a moment he almost changed the subject. But then he said: 'You had better tell me about it.'
Von Uhnen looked at him, swaying slightly with the movement of the carriage.
'You're a good fellow, aren't you? You're my Virgil. You'll know how to treat this.'
Wéry said nothing. Von Uhnen knew that he reported to the palace. He would know, too, that the palace thought the Illuminati were in league with the French. And yet he was still going to speak.
'There was a reception at the Adelsheim place last week . . .' Uhnen began.
'Which one?'
'The house in Saint Emil quarter.'
In the city. On the Prince's territory. That was unwise. But of course the Lady Adelsheim would think herself invulnerable.
'There was a funny little man there called Sorge. Lady Adelsheim said he had come to educate them all . . .'
'The name again – Sorge?'
'Doctor Sorge, of Nuremberg.'
Sorge. In German that meant Worry. Apt, and memorable too. Although Nuremberg, an Imperial city nestling in Bavarian territory, was not the first place he would have looked for French agents. Perhaps their reach was longer than he had thought.
'He came under the wing of Baron Löhm. The strange thing was, my father said, when they all sat down and started to talk, both the Baron and Sorge seemed to think that it was the Baron who was under Sorge's wing, and not the other way about . . .'
'Your father was there?'
'My father went into the meeting with them. I didn't. Most of this I had from Father. They were trying to seduce him, because he's on the inquiry into Hersheim. Of course that didn't work. But according to him, Löhm said there were Illuminati in half the cities in Germany. There are some in Nuremberg, some in Frankfurt, some in Cologne – I can't remember all the places. They recruit followers, and those followers recruit more followers, and so on until they've a great net of people in every state, influencing the government and what have you. Apparently they've even got someone here, in the palace. Highly placed. I had thought it was all rubbish but . . .'
'How high? A canon? An official?'
'Can't tell you. Sorge told him to stop blabbing, I think.'
Connections with the French; connections with an Illuminatus; opposition to the Prince; rumours that could have been designed to undermine the army; and now secret infiltration of the palace! What did the Adelsheims think they were doing?
God! And it was to Adelsheim that he had trusted the link with his contacts across the Rhine!
The coach rocked and clattered slowly over the cobbles. There was a sick feeling in Wéry's stomach. Steady, he thought. Steady.
Fears make nightmares of the smallest things. There did not need to be anything in this. The men in Lady Adelsheim's set were exactly the educated, bored, free-minded sort who might band into secret brotherhoods out of a vague philanthropy and a love of being mysterious. Canon Rother, in particular, was no French tool. His aim was clear enough: to foster enough disaffection with the Prince for the Chapter to appoint him coadjutor, to rule the city and state alongside his enemy Why should any of this mean there was a conspiracy? When you hear them singing the Marseillaise in the city quarters, that's when you need to worry.
Nevertheless, it sounded as if the Adelsheims had been very unwise indeed.
'We're going to have to start again. And I'll need this written down. Can you come back to the barracks with me?'
'I don't want to go back to the barracks!'
'We cannot talk about this at the Markburg.'
'Then we'll talk about something else. I don't mind.'
'I could have a bottle brought to my rooms,' said Wéry and groaned inwardly at himself.
'Make it one each, to start with,' said Uhnen promptly.
Then he seemed to hesitate. 'You're a good fellow, Wéry, he said uncertainly. 'You'll do the right thing.'
'I don't know what I'll do,' said Wéry frankly. 'But let's hear it anyway.'
He was suddenly feeling very tired. And the coach had stopped again. Noises surrounded it. A crowd was pressing past in the narrow way.
'You'd think half the city was out,' mused Uhnen.
'Perhaps it is.'
A white uniform gleamed beyond the carriage window. A voice Wéry knew was calling urgently.
'Lanterns! Lanterns!'
Wéry looked out. There, standing in the roadside behind the coach, was the stocky figure of Heiss.
Heiss, like all the officers close to Balcke-Horneswerden, had acquired a hunted look in recent weeks. More and more of his colleagues seemed to think it bad luck to associate with him. He had become moody, unpredictable, prone to fits of temper and long silences. Now he cut a wild figure in the gloom. He was hatless, cloakless, and held a pistol pointed up at the sky. With his other hand he was gesturing to the crowd to gather around him.
'What's the matter?' called Wéry.
'Who's that?'
'Wéry, and I've got Uhnen with me.'
'Good man! Get down – we need you!'
In a city where officers were barely showing themselves by day, the crowd was rallying around Heiss like a ragged platoon. Lanterns danced among them. A number of them held sticks. Drawn by the urgency of the voices, Wéry climbed out. Von Uhnen followed him.
'What the devil's going on?'
'Devil may be the word for it. There's saboteurs out. Fireraisers. Someone's seen them, down on the quays!'
'Fire-raisers?'
'My brother saw them!' said a voice. 'Down there, by the Old Bridge!'
'I don't believe it!' said Wéry.
The mist was cold, and the wide-eyed faces pressed around him. Suddenly he was not so sure. He felt their fear, and his muscles stiffened with it. In the Chapter House, the city was debating war. But what if the French were already in the city? What if they struck first? That was what they were like. That was far more credible than any talk of Illuminati. You watched your front, and you watched your front; and then suddenly they were on you, round your flank and marching for your lines!
'I don't believe it,' he repeated lamely.
'That's what we're going to find out,' snapped Heiss. 'Come on!'
He led and they all followed him. Down the twisting streets they poured like a pack of hounds. Feet pounded and slipped upon the cobbles. Voices called. A head looked out of a first storey window and cried out a question.
'Fire-raisers!' they answered as they ran past. 'On the quay!'
All at once Heiss turned to his right and plunged down a narrow alley. Wéry hesitated. Then, as if swept up by the others who pushed past him, he followed. The ground was muddy beneath his boots. The alley stank and there was little light. Men hurried ahead of him, squeezed by the close walls into a thin straggle of ones and twos. Others panted behind, pressing him on with their pursuit. There was no time to look round.
'Hey, hold up!' came Uhnen's voice from far behind. 'Hey there!'
But the men ahead of him ran on. Wéry followed, caught by the fever of the hunt, and his duty melted into the mist behind them.
Down, turn, and on down. They were somewhere near the city's small Jewish ghetto, but he did not know where. They were heading towards the river, but where they would come on it he could not guess. Heiss must be aiming to strike the waterside as high as possible, so that his little force could then scour the length of the quays in one sweep. But for God's sake, what was it they had seen? A torch? A plume of smoke? How could you tell smoke from mist in this murk?
'Lights! LIGHTS!' roared Heiss from ahead. He was standing in an open space, looking back up the alley. Beyond him was the gleam of water. Three or four men joined him. One had a lantern. As Wéry arrived on the quay, gasping for breath, Heiss set off again, striding along the narrow wooden walkway that ran before the mean house-fronts of the Riverside Quarter. Wéry followed, a pace or two behind the others.
'No fires yet,' said someone.
'Keep your eyes open,' growled Heiss.
More men were reaching the quay behind them. But voices were still calling among the alleys above and to their left. Some were still making their way down. Some were already lost.
'Quietly, now!'
Thump, thumpety-thump! went a dozen boots upon the walkway. Ripple-ipple, murmured the dark water. The mist blocked the far bank and the Celesterburg from sight. Squinting as he strode, Wéry could just make out the loom of the Old Bridge, barring the river. And the figure on the walkway thirty yards ahead of them, part-lit by a glow from a window. 'There!' he cried.
Others shouted at the same moment. The figure turned, looking their way. It wore a heavy cloak.
'You there!' cried Heiss.
The figure wavered, and seemed to back away.
'You there! Stand! Stand!'
There was a flash from Heiss's upraised hand, and the report of the pistol. The figure disappeared.
Wéry swore, and pushed past the others. For a few lonely seconds he was out and alone, with his boots thumping on the boards and his heart pounding, a cold, sick feeling in his guts like the river beneath his feet. Then he gained the stonework of the quay proper. What seemed to be a pile of cloths was lying there. But the pile had a foot, and an arm flung out of it. And a faint, keening noise came from it.
It was a man.
'Bring a light!' yelled Wéry. 'Bring it!'
The others gathered round. The lantern swung above the fallen man's face.
It was an elderly man – a Jew, from the beard and long locks. His eyes were open. His face, yellow in the lamp-light, was drawn in pain. His mouth moved, gasping. His right hand was groping for his left shoulder, where the dark cloth of his cloak was beginning to soak with blood. Wéry looked up into Heiss's horrified face.
'I challenged him,' Heiss gasped. 'He didn't stand.'
A wealthy Jew, on his way back to the ghetto before the gates locked for the night. And a mob had run up out of the darkness and shouted at him. Of course he had retreated. And . . .
'Eeeee – eeee,' the man whined. One hand clutched at the air near his wounded shoulder. His eyes were screwed up and his nose was a sharp yellow peak jutting up from his face against the shadows behind.
Wéry's knees were wet. He looked down at the dark pool that was growing around him, and already becoming sticky as it grew. His trousers were stained, irreparably.
'You – idiot!' he exclaimed.
Others had run up and were looking down at the wounded man. Von Uhnen was among them.
'There's a surgeon down by the New Bridge,' someone said.
'Help me lift him,' said Wéry.
They hung back. Lift a wounded man, and a Jew at that?
Wéry cursed them in French, as he struggled to get the man's bloody arm over his shoulder. The man cried out.
'Help me!'
It was Uhnen who stepped forward. Heiss had disappeared somewhere, eyes dazed and pistol dangling. The lantern swung in Wéry's eyes.
'Get out of my way,' he snarled, furious with all of them.
Saboteurs indeed!
'And run ahead,' he added. 'Rouse up that damned doctor, and get the bottle out of his lips!'
The wounded man shrieked.
'Now my man,' said Uhnen beside him. 'Don't you worry. We'll have you down to the doctor, and he'll set you right . . .'
Other hands were helping now, lifting the head, a trailing foot, anything they could touch or raise. It still seemed to Wéry that he had two thirds of the weight. His grip was not good, but because of the crowd around him he could not stop and adjust himself. He was hobbling down a foreign quayside, carrying a wounded Jew, with the son of an aristocrat on the other side and a crowd of war-scared murderers around him.
'You know,' gasped Uhnen with false cheerfulness. 'I went – through four years of campaign – never touched a wounded man. Always left the lads to do it. Sorry – about that, now.'
'You may yet get your fill of it,' grunted Wéry.
War, war. It was fear of the war that had sent them all running down the alleys after a rumour. They had gone charging off, like green troops into a forest. No wonder someone had got shot! And if he'd had the pistol, he might have fired too.
The lantern was waiting for them at a door downstream from the New Bridge. The doctor stood in his shirtsleeves in the hallway.
There was a scrum as the bearers rearranged themselves to carry the victim in. Relieved of the burden, Wéry sank exhausted to the cobbles. Von Uhnen felt unsteadily for the doorway, and disappeared inside. From within came the voices of children, one excited by the bustle, the other complaining her supper had been interrupted. Probably they had cleared the dining room table and dropped the wounded man straight onto it.
He should think about doctors. They would be needed, if the city were defended. How many were there? Half of them would want to leave if they thought a siege was coming. So there would have to be orders for the gate guards. That would be the very first thing.
Where should they set up the hospitals?
He was climbing wearily to his feet when he heard a further disturbance, this time from the New Bridge. More voices, another crowd. For a moment he wondered if they had been drawn by the shooting on the quays. But this hubbub was different. It had a lively and strangely festive sound. As he listened, a cheer broke out. Part of the crowd was crossing the New Bridge. Others, lanterns in hand, were coming down the quayside towards him. Faces appeared at windows. Questions were called.
'It's peace!' someone in the crowd answered.
'Peace!' cried a man near Wéry. 'Hurrah!'
'Peace?' asked Wéry urgently. He seized one of the loudest shouters by the arm. 'What's happened? Tell me what's happened!'
'The French Count, sir. He went to the Chapter House while they were meeting. He forced his way in through the doors. And he walked up to His Highness on his throne, and went on his knees. And they all thought he would beg to stay, sir. But he begged that we should not fight for him. He said he would leave the city, because he would not see blood spilled in a place that had been so good to him!'
'His Highness wept, they say, and so did the Count . . .'
'Hurrah!'
'Damn me,' said a voice at his elbow. 'I would never have thought d'Erles had it in him.'
It was Uhnen, emerged from the doctor's house. He was carrying his purse in his hand, and had not stopped to lace it up.
'A surprise, certainly,' said Wéry hollowly.
'I suppose we will have to blow up the walls after all.'
'I suppose we will.'
And they would not loophole churches, dig up streets, set up makeshift hospitals or commandeer doctors – not this time. The Prince had surrendered.
At one or two places around the city, the bells of churches had begun to ring.
Wéry felt a great sense of weariness opening inside him. He did not want to think about the future. If he thought about it he might find there was nothing there. War that became peace in a burst of lanterns and cheering. What was real? Was any of it real? He did not know any more.
'I've settled here,' said Uhnen, finally putting his purse away. He sounded completely sober.
'The city justice next?'
'Not yet. It may be possible to buy off the man he's wounded. But I think we'll leave that to Heiss. He can send his factor to the Jewish elders in the morning.'
And so Heiss would be relieved of his sins. A sordid little act, to clear a man of his conscience. Wéry sighed.
'Very well. Let's get along to the barracks, write your story down, and then we can be finished with that, too.'
'What story?'
'What you were telling me in the coach.'
Von Uhnen hesitated.
'Forget about that,' he said. 'It was nothing.'
Wéry knew he should not be put off. But . . . he barely cared. He had not come to Erzberg to write grubby little reports on families he knew. In fact, he was no longer sure what he had come here for.
'Let's go back anyway,' he said. 'There are still those bottles we were going to share between us.'
'No. No thank you. I've finished for tonight.'
'Have you? I might have both then.'