‘The gate will be guarded, although God knows who takes responsibility for it there,’ Dillon had briefed him. ‘It might be some local gendarme or a night watch made up of hired louts. Try and get there before they close it, and if you have to wave the letter under their noses, try not to hand it over. The chances are they won’t be able to read anyway, so the seal should do the business.’
Up ahead, in the spill of burning torches on the city wall, he could see the men guarding the gate were indeed preparing to close it; shooing people out of the way, shoving a tumbrel loaded with cheap furniture trying to get out before the stout wooden doors swung to. The men all wore the grey-white coats and black tricornes of French army infantry of the line, in other words, proper soldiers. And the one wielding the halberd to press back the crush, James recognised must be their sergeant.
He nudged his horse through the mob, calling, ‘You there! Sergeant! Hold the gate. An officer coming through!’
The sergeant stepped into James’ path holding up the halberd to stop him. ‘State your business at this hour, sir!’
This was not supposed to happen.
‘State my business to you, sergeant?’ said James, summoning all the hauteur he could muster, but did not feel. ‘Do officers often have to obey sergeants in your regiment?’
‘Your excellency, it is a random l’attention de passage. It is my colonel’s orders to check. I cannot disobey my colonel,’ said the sergeant stiffly, but with all the rectitude and respect James expected of an old stager. He would not be able to bluff or bluster this man.
Nor would he be able to escape him, if the sergeant were to discover all the paperwork he had about his person.
Back at Dillon’s rooms, the ambassador had drafted two laissez-passer on James’ stolen vellum, and another letter of introduction, this one to King James’ man at Vienna.
‘This first laissez-passer will take you as far as the frontier fortress at Metz,’ Dillon had said. ‘It says you carry officers’ personal dispatches between garrisons. Nothing official to attract attention, but it will get you an official change of horse. It is over sixty leagues to Metz, and you must travel fast. Faster than any other rider who might be carrying your details. Also, travelling within France, your bona fides will not be challenged too closely. I have smudged a wax seal to the letterhead, so that it will look official, but carelessly stamped.’
The other laissez-passer was to carry him as far as Austria. Relations between Vienna and Paris were currently good, Dillon had told him. James was lucky. The two countries were normally at war. Peace meant his journey through the German states between here and the Habsburg empire should be straightforward. Crossing the French border, however, could prove more problematic.
‘You are not an official royal messenger,’ said Dillon, ‘so you must have a plausible excuse to be in possession of such a laissez-passer. I have fashioned this.’
And he’d pushed across a padded, fine canvas envelope, sealed with the royal stamp.
‘In my communications with Versailles I have on occasion received one of these document sachets,’ said Dillon. ‘I always keep them … for times like this. As I never break the seal when opening it, but slice the wax horizontally with a thread, I can re-seal it to look as if it was never opened in the first place. Inside, I have placed a document for a Mr Teviot, at Innsbruck, outlining what we have discussed, James. He is one of my correspondents, and you must seek him out here, at this inn, and show him this cipher when you arrive.’
Dillion passed him another slip of paper with a scribbled address and adorned with a wax stamp. James had no idea what Dillon meant by a ‘correspondent’, but he did not ask, as any explanation might have taken too much time.
‘The seal on this sachet will appear unbroken,’ continued Dillon. ‘At the French border, if you are challenged as to the purpose of the journey, show them the sachet with its seal, and merely say you have been personally entrusted by his majesty’s household to deliver it privately, to the French ambassador at Vienna, and that you know no more. That should put the fear of hell itself into whoever is asking. If it does not, and you are ordered to present the sachet for closer examination, then run like hell my dear fellow, for a noose awaits you otherwise. The same applies if at any time you are searched while you have all these other papers about your person, as they quite obviously contradict each other. In that event, run, Mr Lindsay, for your life will not be worth a fig.’
So James produced for the sergeant the laissez-passer that guaranteed his passage to Metz. ‘I carry unofficial dispatches,’ he said. ‘See, here.’ And he went to hand down the vellum.
The sergeant did not reach to accept. ‘I shall have to summon my officer, your excellency.’
He could not read. Bugger, the man! Damn and blast!
‘Damn it man! Where is he? I have over sixty leagues to ride and not a moment to lose!’
‘Across the street, your excellency,’ said the sergeant jerking his thumb. ‘Momentarily detained.’
James could see he was gesturing to a bawdy house, light pouring from its open shutters, along with noise and music as well as all the customary squeals of intemperate laughter.
An officer meant questioning; especially a drunken officer upset at being prised from his carnal appetites. James forced himself to calm down. Then in a reasonable voice he
