Quicksilver

I need hardly tell you, reader, that events of the past few days had left me rather tightly wound myself, and I can assure you that the tension was gone from my body long before it was gone from the spring.

You may despise me for having reveled in fleshly pleasure while Dr. von Pfung was laid out with a stroke, but to have been pent up in a stifling carriage with a dying man for all that time had left me with a ravening to partake of life. I closed my eyes at the moment of climax and fell back onto the bed, exhausting my lungs in a long cry, and feeling all tension drain from my body. Etie

Still in the damnable Arde

When I woke up in the bed of Etie

Some ladies boast of ancient pedigrees

And prate about their ancestors a lot

But cankers flourish on old family trees

Whose mossy trunks do oft conceal rot.

My lady’s blood runs pure as mountain streams

So I don’t care if her high rank was bought

Her beauty lends fresh vigor to my dreams

Of children free of blemish and of blot.

His quarters was a little chateau on the east bank of the Meuse. Out the window I could see Belgian river-boats-variously leased, borrowed, bought, or commandeered-coming upstream, their decks crowded with French soldiers. I dressed and went downstairs to find Dr. von Pfung’s carriage-driver waiting for me.

The night before, I had explained my friend’s plight to Etie

The driver and I both understood that this would be impossible. According to the tale I had told my host, we were there as forward observers representing Liselotte. If that were true, we should either stay with the main body, or retire westwards towards St. Cloud-never run ahead of the invasion force. Yet Dr. von Pfung wanted to do just that, whereas I needed to strike out for the north and inform the Prince of Orange that his southern flank was soon to be free of French troops. And so we devised a plan, which was that our little group would leave that day on the pretext of taking Dr. von Pfung back to the west, but that when conditions were right, the carriage would break eastwards towards Heidelberg while I would go north accompanied by the two cavalrymen (who have imposing names and titles but whom I now call by their Christian names, Hans and Joachim). When eyebrows were raised about this later, as seemed more than likely, I would claim that the others had turned out to be Protestant spies, working for William of Orange, and that I had been borne along against my will.

The plan unfolded correctly at first; we crossed the Meuse again as if going back into the west, but then began to make our way northwards up the bank, fighting against an increasing stream of south-bound military traffic. For since the boats were coming up against the river’s current, most of them were drawn by teams of animals on the banks.

After we had traveled north for about half a day we came to a ferry, where we resolved to part ways. I went into the carriage and kissed Dr. von Pfung and said some words to him-though all words, especially ones improvised in haste, seemed inadequate, and the doctor managed to say more with his eyes and his one good hand than I did with my entire faculties. I changed once again into a man’s clothes, hoping to pass myself off as a page to Hans and Joachim, and mounted a pony we’d borrowed from the stables of Etie

They had almost reached the eastern bank when they were hailed by a French officer on one of the south-bound vessels. He had perceived, through his spyglass, Dr. von Pfung’s coat of arms painted on the door of the carriage, and recognized him as coming from the Palatinate.

Now, the driver had a letter from Etie

I could have tarried on the spot and wept for a long time, but on this bank were several locals who had seen us arrive in the company of the carriage, and it would not be long before one of them sold that intelligence to the Frenchmen on the river. So we struck out for the north, begi

The peasants around here say that the lord of the manor is a Bishop. This gives me hope that we are now in the Bishopric of Liege, not terribly far from one of the outlying tendrils of the Dutch Republic. Hans and Joachim have been having a long discussion in German, which I understand but meagerly. One thinks he ought to strike out alone to the East, go to the Rhine, and then double back to the South and warn the Palatinate. The other fears it is too late; there is nothing they can do now for their homeland; it is better to seek revenge by throwing all of their energies behind the Protestant Defender.