By My Sword Alone by David Black (ebook reader ink TXT) 📕

because they refused to betray the king over the water. Now, however, there was a chance for them both to render their king an incalculable service. Was the major in?

Of course he was.

Needless to say, the Austrian feldmarschall and his staff had known all about James’ meeting with Major Aylward. They had opened James’ letter; had, in fact, been expecting one to be sent, and for Cornet of Horse Lindsay to ride out on receiving a reply. It was just what an emissary on such a delicate mission would do; such unusual, behind the scenes communications were to be expected. Especially after the plein pouvoir – the written power of authority – from Princess Clementina’s father in neighbouring Silesia had arrived, appointing Cornet Lindsay by name to guide her in any future negotiations. Prince James-Louis Sobieski’s communication had been under his seal, to be opened only by his daughter, but that hadn’t stopped the feldmarschall from opening it, clandestinely.

What neither the feldmarschall nor his staff had thought to open however, was an earlier, nondescript business letter from a Herr Domogala, temporarily resident in Innsbruck, to an obscure lawyer in Ohlau, Silesia. But then, they weren’t to know it had contained Mr Teviot’s coded request to the prince that he ‘instruct’ his daughter on her future relations with Cornet Lindsay. After all, there had been no reason to suspect Herr Domogala was involved in any way in this matter of diplomacy. While the Austrian authorities were well aware Herr Domogala received a lot of letters, and wrote even more, that was what any man of business did.

In fact, the only concern the feldmarschall’s staff had was the time it had all taken. But when they sat down and thought about it, a messenger would take time to cover the 200 leagues between here and southern Silesia; and even longer, the distance between here and Paris. Any helpful intervention by King Louis was always going to be a long, drawn out affair. However, as long as matters were well in hand, nobody should lose any sleep.

‘And you have the Papal States’ laissez-passer with you?’ Teviot asked Aylward.

These were travel documents for a ‘Comte and Comtesse de Cernez’ and their staff, who were ‘on a pilgrimage to Rome’, that Teviot had written in his own copperplate hand, and stamped with a procured Papal seal. And he had sent them off with James when he rode out to recruit the major to their plan, so that major’s party might enter Austrian territory without arousing suspicion.

‘We do,’ said Aylward. ‘They barely glanced at it at the border.’ Then he asked, ‘And we meet our future queen tonight?’

‘If all goes according to plan, major, you do,’ said Teviot.

‘And for that brilliant plan, we have you to thank, Mr Teviot,’ said Captain O’Brian. ‘And for my ennoblement, and my wife’s, too! Ha! Ha!’

Because for now, O’Brian and his wife were not just calling themselves ‘comte and comtesse’, they had an official Papal laissez-passer to prove it – and much amused Captain O’Brian was by the idea, forged though his document may be.

Teviot shook his head. ‘No, no gentlemen. I merely did the paperwork. The scheme is all this young man’s here. Which I confess, I didn’t think he had it in him.’

Everyone laughed and James smiled and bowed. Apart from all the academic logic he’d had drummed into him at university, he had also lived too long in the presence of the Comtesse de Boufflers not to have learned how to scheme, too. So he accepted the accolade gracefully, but he didn’t like this kind of talk. Teviot might have spoken the truth, but too much could go wrong for them to be throwing plaudits around at this stage. He didn’t like tempting fate.

So, before the self-congratulations went any further, he killed the conversation by observing that ‘There are many other elements in this enterprise that must fall into place yet, and many leagues to travel, for us to call it a success.’

The enterprise’s next element depended on young Heipke Remer, a chambermaid at the Kaiserhof.

If recruiting Aylward and his fellow Irishmen had all been about getting the Princess Clementina away from the Kaiserhof, then the role James had selected Heipke for was to be all about delaying the pursuit.

Heipke was a slim, comely, alert young serving girl who had embroiled herself in this conspiracy by having an eye for James from the moment he stepped through the Kaiserhof’s door. After all, he was the dashing, foreign, young cavalry officer, with the flowing locks and the discreet wounds that announced he had been in battle. Right from the start, he had enjoyed all of her intimate inquiries – might there be anything else he needed? Then came that flash of her eyes, that she was so liberal with when it came to him. It was a flirtation he returned with pleasure, without even considering whether he might use it to his advantage.

Also, it helped they could converse. For although, like everyone else for miles around, she was a native speaker of German – a language James had not a word of – her mother had been Francophone Swiss, so their flirtation was not just a matter of stolen looks and secret smiles.

And that was why the idea had come to him; the role for her in his plot.

She had begun the conversation on the fateful day of her entrapment.

‘That princess you wait on, upstairs in her grand suite, never talking to anyone. She is a haughty one,’ Heipke had observed as an aside, as she cleared the coffee things from his table in one of the Kaiserhof’s many snugs. ‘You write her notes and inquire after her, and she just leaves you sitting all alone, never giving you a reply, or granting you an audience.’

‘I wait on her, Heipke. I am her servant, ready here to