Matthias Bauer - Morbus Dei - The Sign of Aries

The beautiful countryside, which had cheered her up over the past few days and helped take her mind off the dreariness of the prison waggon, had suddenly turned menacing.

The soldiers threw coarse leather hides over their shoulders, covering the weapons at their hips, and tied their hats firmly under their chins.

‘Count me in,’ whispered Alain.

Elisabeth looked at him. ‘Are you sure we’ll make it?’

‘No.’

‘Neither am I. But let’s chance it anyway.’

At that moment a gleam of lightning broke through the clouds, followed by an almighty clap of thunder. The children in the prison waggon burst into tears in fright and their mothers clutched them to them. Then the skies let forth such a deluge that it seemed as if the Lord were bringing a second flood over the earth. The rain trickled through the tarpaulin and formed little rivulets in the straw. Quickly, Elisabeth snatched up the skirt of her dress.

The drumming of the rain enabled the prisoners to exchange a few hushed words, something which was otherwise promptly halted by the guards banging loudly on the bars, and for a moment Elisabeth thought that they might regain their ease and fellow-feeling. However, their conversations soon died away and they surrendered themselves once again to the monotonous jolting of the waggon.

‘Does it rain like this where you come from?’ Elisabeth asked Alain.

‘Yes, the weather in Châteaudun is not so different to here’ he replied. He was silent for a moment and when he spoke again there was longing in his voice. ‘But when the first rays of the sun fall on the blue shingle of our château after a storm, well, that’s the most beautiful sight there is.’

‘Château?’

‘A big castle,’ explained Alain proudly. ‘It’s built on a cliff and looks out over the Loire Valley. King Louis XIV himself stayed there, less than twenty years ago, on a return visit.’

‘Really?’ retorted Elisabeth, unimpressed.

‘You don’t seem to know much about showing respect to your betters,’ exclaimed Alain, annoyed.

‘Josefa once said: even a king has to sit down to relieve himself.’

Alain let out an embarrassed cough. Then they were silent for a while.

‘Somehow you’re right,’ said Alain at last. ‘Nonetheless, showing respect before one’s betters is the very basis of our civilisation.’

‘I was taught to respect everyone equally, irrespective of whether he was on horseback or on foot,’ said Elisabeth, lowering her voice. ‘And to help those in need of help.’

Memories flashed through her mind.

… There had been a knock on the door.

… And an argument between her and her father.

… A stranger had been lying almost dead in the snow.

Johann.

… The days she had spent looking after him.

… And the nights watching over him.

… The perseverance of an old man.

Grandfather.

And then the calamity that had descended on her and the village like an avalanche, burying everything that had ever meant anything.

The same calamity that had then befallen Vienna. She remembered the days in the quarantine district, the sick, and the muffled cries of the madmen incarcerated in the cellars. She remembered the men, women and children wrapped in mantles, some of them walking around during the day, others only coming out at night. And she remembered those terrible hours when Josefa had died and the soldiers has started to evacuate the district.

She heard again the words of the woman, who had appeared like a spectre out of the fog, clutching her child in her arms.

Haven’t you heard? The soldiers are herding us together like cattle.

Where are they?

Everywhere.

She recalled their escape to the harbour, and the last picture, always the same one–the black carriage, its doors opening and snatching her away from Johann and happiness.

Johann.

Her eyes filled with tears. She wiped them away quickly, accidentally smearing dust from the road all over her face.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Alain.

Elisabeth shook her head. ‘Must be beautiful where you grew up,’ she exclaimed, changing the subject.

‘Not only that, the people are even more hospitable than elsewhere in the country. Wherever you go, you’ll always find a roof over your head and a bowl of hot soup waiting for you.’

‘If everything is so hunky-dory over there, then why are you waging war against us?’ asked Elisabeth, staring at him with reddened eyes.

‘Pardon me, but it is you who are waging war against us ! The Habsburgs have formed an alliance with England and are contesting our legitimate right to the Spanish throne.’

Elisabeth shook her head. She had no idea whether Alain was telling the truth or not but it was all the same to her anyway. ‘We could all get on with one another well enough if we wanted to,’ she said laconically, closing her eyes and bringing the conversation to a close.

It’s not a question of wanting to, thought Johann, closing his eyes too, but a question of allowing it to happen.

Thick clumps of mud clinging to their hooves, the horses of Wolff and his men trudged up towards Semmering through the sludge and rivulets of rainwater.

‘We should have waited in Schottwien for the bad weather to pass, as the others did,’ remarked the first officer to Lieutenant Wolff.

‘But the Frenchy didn’t, did he?’ retorted the latter tersely, gazing in surprise at the sight of his breath in the cold air. The officer mumbled something to himself and pulled the collar of his leather coat tighter around his neck.

Wolff couldn’t help smiling to himself. He didn’t take the man’s peevish manner too seriously for he knew that in reality he was a kind-hearted chap. ‘You’ll see, Hermann, in a couple of days’ time you’ll be stretching out your legs again by the fire and letting your wife wait on you hand and foot,’ said Wolff

‘That’s what you think. Maria is in the family way for the third year in a row and she’s as moody as hell.’

‘And you’ve got nothing to do with that of course, eh?’ teased Wolff. ‘If you will go jumping on her as soon as she’s given birth …’

‘Me jump on her? Did she tell you that?’ asked the officer, becoming nettled. ‘It was the other way round,’ he added with a grin.

‘You should know!’ retorted Wolff with a snigger. He turned back to the road. He was looking for ruts in the surface but the heavy rain was making it difficult. There was no sign of any tracks anywhere.

His instinct told him that Gamelin was trying to give them the slip.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked his officer, noticing his worried expression.

‘I don’t know, Hermann, somehow I have the feeling we’ve lost them.’

The officer squinted at something in the rain. ‘To be frank, Georg, even if the waggon had passed this way only an hour ago the tracks would be washed away by now. Besides, what other route could they have taken?’

‘There are lots of little paths round here, used mostly by robbers and smugglers. They all lead across the Semmering Pass.’

‘But they’d never make it with the waggons.’

‘You might be mistaken there,’ muttered Wolff, thoughtfully.

‘Shall we turn round?’ asked the officer.

Wolff shut his eyes for a moment and listened to his horse’s hooves squelching through the mud and the drumming of the rain.

‘No, we’re going in the right direction,‘ he said at last, looking into the forest to his right. ‘But we’re on the wrong road.’

Suddenly he jerked the reins and his horse turned abruptly off the road and plodded into the undergrowth. His men followed him.