1636: The Devil's Opera

by Eric Flint

  “A wager. If I win, you pay me twice the value what’s in these purses. If I lose, you get the purses.” Karl opened his mouth to object, and Hans held up a finger. “You get the purses, and the knowledge that you beat Hans Metzger, the Samson of Magdeburg.”

  Karl sat back for a moment, then nodded his head. “Agreed.”

  With that, chairs and stools all around them scraped on the floor. The other men in the room had obviously been listening, and now they moved to where they could see what was going on. In a moment, their table was surrounded by a circle of observers. There was a murmuring sound, as side discussions happened and bets were made.

  “You will have to move, boy.” Hans stood and took off his coat. Karl did the same while Hans handed his bottle to Simon. “Hold on to that for me.” Simon took it, but was forced to leave his mug on the table. “Nay, take your mug, too.”

  “I can’t.” Simon felt like he had ash in his mouth. “I only have one hand.”

  “Hummph!” Hans looked at him for a moment, then placed a hand on his shoulder. “Well, we can talk about that later. Meantime, you are still my luck, so stand over there where you can see everything and where I can see you.”

  Before he sat down, Hans turned his head toward the counter and bellowed, “Veit!”

  The tavern keeper pushed his way through the circle. “What do you want?”

  “Hold these.” He handed Veit the purses and Simon’s mug, then grinned at Simon and put his hat on the boy’s head.

  Hans took his seat across the table from Karl. The Hannover man plopped his elbow down on the table top and held his forearm up. There was an eager light in his eye. Hans took his time, rolling his shirt sleeve up with slow deliberation, revealing a hairy forearm corded with muscle.

  “Otto,” Hans called out as he laid his elbow on the table. “Call the count.”

  A man stepped out of the circle to stand by the table. As the two wrestlers joined hands he laid his atop theirs. “Begin when I count three. One…Two…Three!” With that, Otto dropped his hand and jumped back. The contest was on.

  The muscles in Hans’ arm sprang to hard definition. To Simon it almost appeared like there were sticks under the skin, the cords were so strong.

  Karl snarled and grimaced, ducking his head as if he was clenching every muscle in his upper body. The joined hands began to move his way, his forearm forcing Hans’ back and down. It was a slow movement, but steady, until the hands were maybe halfway toward the table. Then the motion stopped.

  The hands stayed there for a long moment. Nothing Karl did moved Hans. No snarl or grunt affected him, no additional push moved him, no glare from fevered eyes touched him. Hans was rock steady.

  Simon was so excited he was almost jumping up and down. He’d seen boys and young men arm wrestle before, but nothing like this contest. Here were two grown and very strong men pouring their all into the conflict, and the excitement filled the air around them. Simon found himself chanting, “Come on Hans, come on Hans,” while the men around him were all shouting and shaking their fists in the air. The roar in the tavern was almost deafening.

  The boy almost missed it when it happened. He saw Hans’ eyes narrow a little, then his hand turned a bit, forcing Karl’s hand to twist on its wrist just the slightest amount.

  The joined hands began to move again, only this time Hans’ hand was moving upward and Karl’s hand was moving back. Time and again the man from Hannover would grunt or snarl and try to stop the movement, only to fail. Hans made no noise but the breath whistling in and out of his nostrils. His hand made its slow and steady movement until it passed the vertical and started pushing Karl’s hand toward the table.

  The shouting redoubled, until Simon wondered if the building would collapse from the noise. He wished he had two empty hands, so he could cover his ears. At the same time, he continued to chant, “Come on, Hans!”

  Back and back and back went Karl’s hand. Hans showed no sign of elation or triumph; he continued pushing as if he were closing a door.

  The end came suddenly. There was a snap sound, and Karl’s hand smashed into the table.

  “Aaaah!” Hans released his grip at Karl’s scream and sat back, while the other man’s face paled to what looked like a corpsely green in the dim light of the tavern and he grabbed his right arm above the elbow. Simon watched as the Hannoverian tried to move his arm and his face contorted with pain. “You son of a sow!” he shouted at Hans. “You’ve broken my arm.”

  Hans shrugged. “It was a fair contest. I did nothing to force that to happen. Everyone here will witness to that.” Voices all around them were raised in agreement.

  Barnabas was at his cousin’s side, pulling on his sound arm and muttering something about a doctor. Hans held his hand up, stopping Karl in mid-rise.

  “You lost,” Hans stared into Karl’s eyes. “You owe me. Veit, empty the purses on the table.”

  Simon had been right; the purses were almost flat. There were few coins in either of them. Two coins fell out of one; three out of the other. But the coins that fell out, now that caused eyes to widen all around the room. There on the table top lay three Groschen and two pfennigs. Simon sucked in his breath. He counted in his mind, twelve plus twelve plus twelve plus two—thirty-eight pfennigs worth. He’d never seen that much at one time.

  Other minds had been doing their own counting. “Six Groschen you owe me, plus four pfennigs,” Hans declared. “Pay up.”

  “I will do no such…” Karl began, only to be interrupted by a growl from the crowd. He looked around. Simon thought he turned even paler. The Hannoverian said nothing more, but reached under his jacket and dug out a purse with his left hand. He handed it to Barnabas and made a violent gesture toward Hans. Barnabas took the purse almost timidly, opened the drawstrings and rooted through the contents until he had counted out the bounty that Hans had won.

  Hans looked over his winnings, smiled and nodded. Karl lurched to his feet and shouldered his way through the crowd, followed by Barnabas. Hans waited until the door crashed closed behind them, then stood. He pulled his coat back on, plucked his hat off of Simon’s head and crammed it back on his own, then scraped all the coins together and poured them back into one of the purses.

  “Well, lads,” Hans bounced the purse in his hand, “not a bad night’s work, eh?”

  Some men in the crowd were grousing as they had to pay off on the poor bets they made, but most of them laughed. Simon heard a mutter sounding from all around him. “Stark Hans. Stark Hans.”

  Hard Hans indeed, Simon thought to himself. The hardest man he had known in his short life. The nickname sounded even harder because it was pronounced in the truncated form so often found in Amideutsch. In most German dialects the phrase would have been “Starker Hans.”

  “Veit,” Hans called out. The tavern keeper looked his way. Hans held up a Groschen for all to see, then flipped it to him. “Ale all around.”

  There was a loud cheer from the crowd as it made a mass movement toward the serving counter. In a moment, Simon and Hans were standing by themselves amid a scattering of tables, chairs and benches.

  “Well, Simon my lad,” Hans said. “You’ve been my luck twice tonight. Here.” He reached over, took the blue bottle from the boy, and tucked it in a side pocket of his coat, then handed Simon a pfennig. “Let’s go home.” He placed his hand on Simon’s shoulder and they went out the door together.

  Chapter 8

  “Well, that was interesting,” Marla said as she walked down the steps from the Simpson house, hands busy buttoning her coat to shut out the night-time chill.

  Franz looked over as he stepped down beside her. “How so?”

  “Oh, not that she’s coordinating anything and everything she can to support the emperor. That’s a given. For all that she says she’s not political, Mary has been associated with power and influence for so long that if she’s not breathing the atmosphere of politics she starts getting dizzy from the thinness of the air around her.”


  All their friends chuckled from where they had gathered around her and Franz. He held his elbow out to her, felt her take it, and they began walking back to their own house, friends trailing in their wake.

  “And most of the ideas that she and Lady Beth put on the table are good, and reasonable. Parades—you’ll like that,” she twisted her head to look at Thomas Schwartzberg.

  Thomas had finally made his way from Grantville to Magdeburg, having spent the last two years training some of the local musicians to copy up-time music from the many recordings that had come back through the Ring of Fire. Franz was delighted that his good friend had rejoined their little company.

  “Parades, mmm,” Thomas rumbled. “Sounds like opportunities for marches.” He gave a huge grin as the rest of the company chuckled. The amanuensis of up-time composers had developed a definite taste for up-time style symphonic band music. The others in the group, who were all involved with the Magdeburg Symphony Orchestra, poked fun at him, which he took in good nature. “I have one in mind.”

  “So what was interesting?” Franz prodded his wife.

  “Oh, the plans for an opera, of course. Master Heinrich can do it…” Here Marla referred to Heinrich Schütz, the emperor’s Kappellmeister for the court in Magdeburg, and the foremost German composer of the day. “…but can he do it quickly enough to be a help?”

  Laughter sounded from all the group. “Master Heinrich is not one of your neurotic up-timer musicians,” Rudolf Tuchman advised from behind them. “The man is one of the best of our day. He had to write a new cantata every week for weeks on end when the elector of Saxony was holding court. He will have Arthur Rex ready for rehearsal before you can believe it.”

  “I hope so.” Marla was quiet for a few steps. “Funny, but for all that the Arthur legends are truly iconic in our literary history, even by my time there were few musical treatments of them, and none that were of the first rank. Well, except for Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal and Lohengrin.” Franz saw the expression of distaste cross Marla’s face. It was apparent that Wagner was not her favorite composer. “But those only dealt with peripheral stories, not with the main legends. I hope Arthur Rex proves to be the exception to that rule.”

  They had arrived at their house, and Franz dug in his pocket for the door key. After a moment of fumbling at the lock, he swung the door open and they all trooped in, led by Marla. There was a busy minute or so of doffing coats and finding places to store them. Their friends all found places to sit or perch around their parlor.

  Franz looked up as Marla stepped over to him. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to let you guys talk about the orchestra programs without me. I’m…tired,” she murmured. And to his eyes, she did appear to be wilting.

  “As you wish. I will try to keep the discussion quiet in here.” He squelched all the other things that rushed into his mind to say. It had been an eventful day; if she desired time alone, he would give it to her.

  Marla kissed his cheek, then crossed through their friends, smiling and speaking to them as she did. They all watched her leave the room, then turned as one to look at Franz, uniform sober expressions on nine faces: Rudolf and his brother Josef, Thomas, Hermann Katzberg, Isaac Fremdling, Paul Georg Seiler, and Matthaüs, Marcus and Johann Amsel. Friends old and new, all close, all part of the nucleus of musicians committed to the future of music envisioned by Marla and Franz. All now looking at him with the same unspoken question on their faces.

  “Yes, Marla is doing better,” Franz responded. “No, she is obviously not back to her normal from before the miscarriage. Frau Mary and Frau Lady Beth both tell me that she’s doing well, but that it might be some time before she is fully recovered.”

  He withheld from them Mary’s final statement on the matter to him: “And Marla may never fully regain her joy, Franz. To lose her firstborn like that, with no warning, is devastating. It can’t help but change her. We’ll just have to hope that it doesn’t change her for the worse.” Which was now his daily prayer.

  * * *

  Outside the Chain there was a bite of cold in the air. Simon pulled his jacket close around him with his left hand, checking to see that his bread was still tucked away.

  The moon was shining full, and in the light Simon could see Hans look over at him. “So, your other arm is crippled?”

  “Doesn’t work at all,” Simon said in a monotone.

  “Did you hurt it as a younker, or something?”

  “Born with it, I guess.” Simon swallowed hard. “Been that way as long as I can remember.”

  They walked a few steps in silence, then Hans spat to one side. “Tough.”

  “Yah.”

  They walked a few more steps.

  “Family?”

  “No.”

  “Tough.” Hans shook his head.

  “Yah.” The taste of ashes was back in Simon’s mouth.

  “Got a place?”

  “Found a nook behind a chimney over in the new town. Stays warm there.”

  Hans shook his head again. “Not tonight. You’re my luck; you’ll come home with me. Meet my sister.”

  Simon still wasn’t sure what kind of man this Hans Metzger was. He shook his head in return. “You don’t have to do that.”

  A large hand landed on the boy’s shoulder again. “I owe you, boy. You’re my luck.” The hand moved on to muss his hair. “Least I can do is give you a warm dry place to sleep tonight and food in the morning.”

  Simon felt the lump of bread in his jacket. Food in the morning would mean the bread could feed him later. And he could probably run away if he had to. He knew the ins and outs of the alleys and streets and ruins better than anyone. “All right.”

  “Good. Down this way.”

  Hans turned down a cross street. Before long they exited the old city, crossed the Big Ditch and were in a slightly more reputable neighborhood than the depths where the Chain was sited. Simon was tired. His feet were beginning to drag. It had been a long day for him, so he was very glad when Hans turned into an alley between two buildings.

  “Come on, boy.” Simon followed Hans’ broad back up a flight of narrow wooden stairs. They arrived at the top, and he waited while Hans fumbled with a key in a lock. After a few moments, Simon heard his friend sigh in satisfaction and push the door open.

  “Hans? Is that you?”

  Simon’s ears perked up at the sound of the voice from inside the rooms. It was a clear bell-like soprano that seemed to tease his ears, so unlike the voices of the vegetable sellers and barmaids that he saw on the streets.

  “And who else would it be, Ursula?” Hans reached back and drew the boy into the room with him, then closed the door. Simon could make out a figure sitting in a chair with a candle on a nearby table.

  “Oh!” Simon heard the surprise in her voice. “You have someone with you.”

  “Ursula, meet my young friend Simon…I never did learn your other name, boy.”

  Simon felt a laugh coming up his throat, which he hurried to turn into a cough. “Bayer.”

  “Ah,” Ursula said, “you are from Bavaria.”

  “Yes. I mean no.” Simon was flustered now. “I was born here in Magdeburg. My father came from Bavaria, I think.”

  “Well, it is good to meet you, Herr Bayer. Please excuse my appearance.” The young woman was sitting in a robe, yellow hair plaited into a thick braid that hung before her shoulder. Simon was stunned by how beautiful she looked in the soft candlelight.

  Hans dropped his hand from Simon’s shoulder, ducked his head and shuffled closer to his sister. “I…uh…I forgot how late it was, and I wasn’t thinking. Sorry, Uschi.”

  Ursula gave a warm smile up to her brother. “I know. It’s all right.” She lifted her hand. “Help me up, please.”

  Hans took her small hand with one of his and placed the other under her elbow. Simon watched as he gently lifted her from the chair. She came to her feet, then she…sagged. Simon almost jumped forward, afraid that she was f
alling. But then he could see that she was standing on her feet, she just wasn’t straight. Her right shoulder was dropped, which meant that her hip probably was as well.

  Ursula reached to the table where the candle was and picked up a cane that was hooked over the edge of the table. With that in hand, she lurched into motion. Step by laborious step she made her way to a door in one wall. She leaned on the cane as she reached to open the door, then pivoted slowly to look back at her brother and his guest.

  “Good night, Hans, Herr Bayer.”

  “Good night, Uschi,” Hans said. Simon’s tongue was glued to the roof of his mouth. He could say nothing.

  Hans sighed after her door closed and sat down in a chair across from Ursula’s. He waved Simon to a nearby stool.

  “It happened during the sack of the city,” Hans began. “We were trying to get out, get away from Pappenheim’s troops. I was able to force our way through the crowds, able to hold on to her and keep her with me. She was only fifteen, and so small, so delicate.” There was a pensive expression on Hans’ face in the candlelight. “I thought I could keep her safe, keep her protected. But there came a surge of the crowd and her hand was torn from mine. I turned and looked for her, I called for her, I started pushing against the flow trying to get back to where I lost her. Then I heard her scream.”

  The big man clasped his hands together, hard. “She had fallen, and before she could get back up some fool on a horse had ridden right over her. Her left leg was cut up, but her right…the knee was crushed, and the bones were broken in two other places.”

  Simon heard Hans swallow, hard.

  “I almost went for him. I’ve never wanted to kill anyone, before or since, but him I wanted dead. Still do, for that matter. If I ever see his face, he’s a dead man. But she screamed again, and I turned to her. I picked her up and carried her, out of the city and away to one of the villages. I didn’t care where we went, so long as Ursula could find help.”