Free The Lightstep by John Dickinson Page A

a legion who cry out because of what you
have done. Therefore, sirs, I bring before you the loss of my
brother, and of all those other innocent and worthy men, on
both sides, who became victims of this act, though it be the
least of all the acts you have committed. They are the
innocent that you have condemned. And I beg you to pray to
Our Lady for pardon, if indeed you pray at all; and I shall pray
for pardon that I cannot pardon you.
    Written in grief,
    Maria Constanze Elisabeth von Adelsheim
    Blot her mother's ink dry. Envelope it, and seal it with her
mother's wax. Do not think on scruples. For now, and for however
long it might be, she was the mistress in Adelsheim. While
Mother wept and heaped her blame aimlessly around
Christendom, she would speak with Adelsheim's voice. She
would bring the guilt home.
    Then, as her pen hovered over the envelope, she hesitated.
    For with whom, exactly, did the guilt lie?
    She knew very well whom she was addressing – those faceless
men of France whose insanities had brought all this to pass.
But she needed to point her finger at just one, or at most a
few, of all that nation. She wanted to pin him, or them, with
her words, as a duellist who had backed his opponent to the
wall now skewered him with one fast thrust. And whom exactly
did she mean? The soldiers, accused, would turn and point
to their officers, the officers to their general, their general
to his masters in Paris. And the masters would say, 'Yes, we
did have a part, but it was also because of . . .' and they
would point in other directions. And so it would go on, and
on. The guilt – the one black guilt – would be broken into
little pieces, like a Host at Mass, and passed out to a thousand,
ten thousand, mouths that would swallow it in little black
crumbs, and then it would be gone. To whom should she
speak?
    Her pen wavered, and she put it down. Then she picked it up
again, frowning. There would be someone. Someone stood concealed,
in the heart of that great diffuse conspiracy that had killed
him. She needed only to think a little.
    Perhaps it should go to Paris. She should address the so-called
'Directory' who were the masters of France at least in name. But
how, if so, was she to reach them? There would be no post yet,
working across the Rhine. And she could hardly dispatch one of
the servants to ride all the way to Paris – even if she was the only
one in the house left in their right mind.
    In the end she wrote a single line upon the envelope. 'To M.
the General Hoche, Commander of the French Army at Wetzlar.'
    Let their creature in Germany receive her blame, for France
and all its works. It was enough. And Wetzlar was only twenty
leagues away, in Nassau, this side of the Rhine. It was much more
likely to get there safely. She did not know the proper form for
addressing a general of a republic that neither the Emperor nor
her father recognized. However, she thought, the man himself
probably did not know it either.
    'You must introduce me to your Michel,' said the younger Maria,
as she lifted her candle in the final, graceful movement of the
dance.
    On the settee the ghost stirred.
    'Introduce you?' it murmured. 'Perhaps. But will you love him
or hate him? I cannot predict.'

PART III:
THE FEARFUL CITY
June–October 1797

VI
The Gallant in
Mourning
    A man walked down the main Saint Simeon Street in the
walled city of Erzberg. His name was Karl von Uhnen, and
he was the son of an Imperial Knight.
    The first and most important truth about the Uhnens, known
to all those who were aware of such things, was that the Knight's
grandfather had entered into a misalliance. Moved by nothing
more than love, he had married a woman of no pedigree. And he
had bequeathed the consequences to his house. Now the Uhnen
family shield bore only twelve quarterings, rather than a full
sixteen. And although the Knight had wealth and wit and
influence, although he had secured posts for himself at the
Prince-Bishop's court and a commission in