Morbus Dei: The Sign of Aries. Matthias Bauer

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      The valley was narrowing and the jagged cliffs towered up steeper now. The sun was struggling to peep through the gathering clouds.

      General Lieutenant Gamelin pushed the curtain to one side and gazed out at the passing scenery.

      How quickly it had changed, he thought. The gentle, rolling hills outside the gates of Vienna had all but vanished. The mountains were surrounded by thick fog but there was one solitary cone of rock with a mighty fortification on it, hovering menacingly out of the mist like a castle in the sky.

      Gamelin closed the curtain and traced his finger across an exquisitely drawn map, which was lying with some other maps in a leather folder on his lap. He had been studying them in detail for days and had diligently marked the most important towns and crossroads.

      The fortification he had just glimpsed in the fog was Burg Klamm vor Schottwien so he knew they had reached Semmering.

      Gamelin laid the leather folder to one side and closed his eyes with satisfaction. Even the jolting of the carriage no longer bothered him, quite the contrary, every pothole, every bump brought him closer to his goal.

      He had waited for this for so long! As he thought back over his career in the French army, images began to surface …

      1665, an important year: at last he’d got a post as lieutenant in a cavalry regiment in southern France. Then came his next big chance: the Franco-Dutch War. He had served in Flanders and had proved as a volunteer in numerous campaigns that discipline and daring need not be mutually exclusive. Three years later he had been rewarded with a promotion to the rank of mestre de camp.

      He stroked his well-groomed goatee with a smile.

      In 1679 he had been appointed brigadier. Then a couple of years later came the big invasion of the Rhine Army, with him riding at its head. German place names flashed through his mind: Heilbronn, Knittlingen, Mannheim.

      Then came Esslingen … and the parson’s daughter, a real sweetie, he recalled. He had never had much to do with women, liaisons were simply too awkward and got in the way, but the parson’s daughter had been something special.

      What was her name again …? No matter.

      Heidelberg in flames. Oppenheim in ruins. The destruction of Landskrone Castle. ‘Defortification of cities’ the generals had dubbed it, and he had enthusiastically helped with the campaign: the decimation of large areas of Kurpfalz and the destruction of towns in Württemberg and Baden and, with them, the livelihoods of the enemy population.

      All of which Gamelin had used to embellish his own reputation.

      If he could bring down the Citadel of Turin and save the lives of umpteen thousand French soldiers, sappers and miners, then they would surely appoint him to ‘Maréchal général des camps et armées du roi’–just like his great hero Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne. Mind you, he would certainly refrain from treating his soldiers in the same humane way for that was just mollycoddling and undermined morale.

      Suddenly the carriage stopped and Gamelin’s musings were at an end.

      He straightened his jacket, got out of the carriage and looked around. They had stopped just in front of a main square. Behind them stood the fortified toll gate of Schottwien, whose defensive wall closed off the valley completely. At the other end of the square was another wall, and behind it a road leading through a dangerous cliff gorge, the Semmering Pass. It was impossible to get cross the mountains without paying a toll.

      Just to make sure no gulden escape the coffers, thought Gamelin, smiling to himself. Efficiency appealed to him, irrespective of what form it took.

      He noticed that the marketplace had an unusually large number of blacksmiths, wainwrights and saddlers; and there were plenty of hostels and drinking dives too, in which one could probably find all manner of distraction. They were no doubt profiting from customers of the harnessing station, for every vehicle that wanted to climb from the foot of Semmering up the steep mule track to the pass had to harness additional horses. Gamelin had made detailed inquiries in advance.

      His adjutant came running up and saluted eagerly. He was a good head shorter than Gamelin, with a slight build and fiery red hair. He had served under the Maréchal de camp much longer than any of his predecessors and he attributed this fact to the deep awe he felt towards him. As a result, he tended to be over-correct in his manner.

      ‘Harness as many horses as necessary, irrespective of the cost,’ ordered Gamelin. ‘I don’t want to get stuck somewhere just because we don’t have enough horses.’

      The adjutant nodded and saluted again.

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