1636: The Devil's Opera

by Eric Flint

  Marla bowed her head for a moment, then raised it again. She took a deep breath, then nodded without looking around. Franz gave the nod to the others, and they began the low unison tones that gave Marla the foundation for the beginning.

  “Do you hear the people sing?”

  * * *

  Franz was awe-struck. He knew just how good a musician, how fine a singer, his wife was. And he had heard her rise above even her usual superlative level of performance before. But tonight, tonight she had elevated to another plane entirely; or perhaps a different world. He could hear the passion in her voice, he could hear the joy that she was pouring out like a very fountain, but tonight there was a keenness, a honed edge to her. She stood still as she sang, unlike her normal flowing movements; hands outstretched, no movement other than the rise and fall of her chest and diaphragm.

  At the end of it, when Marla had finished pouring forth her soul like a fountain of liquid diamond, it was as if the voice of heaven had stopped; the world seemed darker and poorer for it. She stood there, breast heaving as she gulped air in, hand shaking as she tucked a loosened lock of hair back behind her ear again.

  There was one thought on the minds of every man facing her. Franz could see it in their eyes. But only one had the courage to say it. There was a stir as men moved—or were moved—out of the way to allow Gunther Achterhof to reach the front. He nodded to Marla, which Franz knew was equivalent to a genuflection from a lesser man, and said in a quiet voice, “Wieder, bitte—again, please.”

  Marla nodded in return.

  The room was quiet as she regained her breath, waiting with a hard singleness of purpose. After some moments, she looked over to Franz and lifted a hand. He looked to their friends, gave the nod, and began again.

  The second time through was not as intense as the first time. It couldn’t help but be lesser. No singer could give at that most extreme level for very long. Oh, Franz could tell that Marla still felt the passion for the song, and she still gave it a superlative performance, but the unique edge was missing. She was just Marla with the angelic voice now, rather than being the Sword of Music, or of God. But that was still enough.

  Men throughout the room mouthed the words, trying to commit them to memory. These were words that would change men’s lives. Franz knew it, and they could sense it.

  The song came to an end a second time. There was a brief moment of silence, until Logau began rapping his walking stick on his table top in a slow regular beat that matched the pulse of the song. Hands and feet quickly followed suit, until the building rocked from the regular percussive slam of sound.

  Marla faced the men. Franz could see her shoulders beginning to shake, so he handed off his violin to one of the Amsel brothers and went to guide her to a stool. Gronow leapt up from his and shoved it forward with alacrity. Franz looked up and caught Gunther’s gaze. He drew his hand across his throat sharply.

  Gunther got the point as if they had discussed having a special signal. He gave a piercing whistle, then yelled, “Out! The evening’s over. Remember it, but go home now.”

  CoC men coalesced from all over the room, forming a barrier between Marla and her friends and the rest of the crowd. The tavern emptied; amidst shoving and protesting, granted, but it emptied.

  Franz waved Gunther over, and handed him a piece of paper from his pocket.

  “She said you would want this.”

  Gunther took it with upraised eyebrows.

  “Words,” Franz explained.

  Gunther unfolded it enough to see the first verse of lyrics to the song, and flashed a tight smile to them all. “She is so right. Thank you, my friend.” He shook Franz’s hand. “My friends.” He swept his gaze around the rest of the group. “Frau Marla.” He nodded again to her. “This will mean quite a lot to the people.”

  There was a stir in the doorway, someone trying to go against the flow. Whoever it was managed to penetrate the crowd, until he bounced off of the CoC men.

  Franz had just drawn Marla to her feet, ready to take her home. He looked around at the disturbance, and caught a glimpse of a familiar face being pushed away.

  “Let him through,” he called out. A moment later, Andrea Abati squeezed through the barrier of muscle and hurried over to take Marla’s hands.

  Marla looked up at him—one of the few down-timers who was taller than she—and her mouth quirked a bit, as if she was trying to smile.

  “Did you hear me, Master Andrea?”

  “I wasn’t able to get inside, but I was able to stand in the doorway and hear you.” He was very serious, and he swallowed before he spoke again. “Oh, child, what have you wrought?”

  Franz could see the iron determination on Marla’s face, as weary and drained as she was.

  “What I must, Master Andrea. What I must.”

  * * *

  Franz arose early the next morning. By some miracle of scheduling, Atwood had managed to arrange for a ride on a river boat leaving Magdeburg that day, even though it was Sunday. By the time the sun was shining over the city walls, Franz and Atwood were walking out the front door to catch a cab for the river dock. Atwood allowed Franz to carry the duffle, but the up-timer still insisted on carrying the case with the precious recording rig.

  A couple of men leaning against the front of their house straightened as they came out the door. Atwood frowned a bit, but relaxed when Franz greeted them.

  “Klaus, Reuel. It has been a while since I’ve seen you.”

  “Aye,” Klaus nodded. “Gunther said after last night that we should stand watch again for a while.”

  “Watch?” Atwood asked.

  “I am sorry, I forgot to introduce you. Herr Cochran, meet Klaus and Reuel, two of the staunchest members in the ranks of the Committees of Correspondence.” Atwood held his hand out. “Guys, this is Atwood Cochran from Grantville, Marla’s good friend.” They smiled and shook hands with the up-timer.

  Klaus snapped his fingers. “I almost forgot.” He started digging through his pockets. “Gunther wanted you to have this right away.” He grinned in triumph and produced a much folded sheet of paper from his coat and handed it to Franz.

  Franz unfolded it to produce a broadsheet. The caption blazoned across the top read:

  Ein Anruf Zu Den Armen

  Atwood looked over his shoulder. “I still have trouble reading the heavy scripts,” he said. “What does it say?”

  “A Call to Arms,” Franz translated. He gestured to the balance of the broadsheet. “And here are the words Marla sang last night.”

  Atwood whistled. “That was fast work, to get this out so quickly.”

  Klaus grinned. “Gunther had the press crew up out of bed as soon as he got back to the Arches last night. Told them he didn’t care what they had to do, he wanted this on the streets by dawn.” He chuckled. “They did it, too.”

  Franz tried to hand the broadsheet back to Klaus, who held up a hand in refusal.

  “That’s for you and Frau Marla, Herr Franz. Gunther insisted you have one of the first copies. ‘That’s little enough,’ he said, ‘for what she has worked for us.’”

  Franz nodded his thanks, folded the broadsheet back up with care, and placed it in his own jacket pocket.

  “Herr Franz,” Reuel spoke up, “you tell Frau Marla that we heard her sing last night, and we really liked it. But that last song,” his expression became very sober, “that last song was something special. You tell her that for us, and tell her that…just tell her that.”

  “I will,” Franz assured him.

  “There’s already men kicking themselves that they were not there to hear her last night,” Klaus added.

  “Oh, tell them not to worry,” Atwood spoke up with a grin. “I recorded the song on tape, and I’m going to play it on my music show on Voice of America in a week.”

  Klaus and Reuel looked at him wide-eyed. “Does Gunther know that?”

  Atwood’s grin grew wider. “Since I just now decided to do it, I really doubt that he doe
s.”

  “’Scuse me,” Klaus said. He stepped out into the street and whistled shrilly. Another man trotted up from a block away. “Will, you stay here. I have to get word to Gunther.” And he sprinted down the street.

  A cab approached, attracted by the whistle. Franz flagged the cabbie down, and he and Atwood clambered up into the wagon with the baggage. The cabbie clucked to his horse, and they rolled off with a final wave to the CoC men.

  “Keep watch?” Atwood repeated his question. “Why do you have CoC toughs loitering in front of your house like they’re keeping guard on it?”

  “Because they are.”

  Atwood frowned. “Give.”

  “When we first came to Magdeburg, the CoC kept an eye over us because we were important to Frau Simpson. But after Marla started singing the Irish songs in the tavern, well, those songs spoke to them and they watched over her because the songs were important to them. And to keep her from being harassed in the tavern, until people learned who and what she was.”

  “Oh, yes,” Atwood chuckled. “I got a good belly-laugh when I heard what she was doing. You do realize that most of those songs were from the Catholic side of that particular disagreement, don’t you? The thought of a bunch of mostly Protestant Germans singing music written by mostly Catholic Irishmen just really tickled my funny bone. Still does.”

  They chatted about nothing consequential for a few blocks, until Atwood pointed to one side.

  “Look at that.”

  Franz followed the other man’s finger and saw a young woman handing out broadsheets to grasping hands, broadsheets that had a familiar looking caption on them. He leaned back, as he began to absorb the reality of just what might come of Marla’s song.

  * * *

  Friedrich von Logau sauntered into Walcha’s Coffee House later that day, pleased with himself, which wasn’t an unusual condition, and pleased with the world as well, which was a bit more irregular. He seated himself at his accustomed table, waving a hand at the serving maid and holding up one finger. His cup of coffee appeared almost before he could lower his hand.

  He was midway through his first cup, doodling in his pocket notebook again as he mentally masticated on a new epigram that was refusing to take proper shape, when the door opened and Gronow and Plavius came in. They were arguing over something; not an unusual state of affairs for them. They broke it off when they saw Friedrich, however, and almost marched on him, wasting no time in crossing the floor and setting into chairs on each side of him.

  Logau made a slow studied gesture of pulling out his pocket watch and checking the time. “Well, I would have said good morning, my friends, but according to this the morning has fled and afternoon is upon us.” He closed the cover of the watch and beamed at them. “So good afternoon to you, instead. What took you so long?”

  “Ach,” Plavius said, “the pastor was long-winded in his homily this morning, and the choir had a new cantata to sing by Kappellmeister Schütz, which was so long I wonder if he got confused and decided to write an oratorio instead.”

  Gronow waved a hand in dismissal of all that. “Friedrich, you knew, did you not, what that woman was going to do last night?”

  Logau pursed his lips and nodded.

  “And you purposely and intentionally did not tell us beforehand.”

  Now Logau could feel his facial muscles stretch as the very broad grin fought its way onto his face despite all he could do to repress it.

  “You son of a syphilitic sow,” Gronow exclaimed in English, sitting back as the serving maid slid a cup of coffee in front of him.

  “Nice alliteration,” Logau commented, still smiling. He was enjoying this.

  “No,” Plavius contradicted his friend. “You should not insult good swine that way. Myself, I would say he is more of a scrofulous, flea-infested, pox-ridden cur.”

  Logau put his pencil down, and applauded.

  “Well done, my friends. You have risen to new heights—or is it depths—of invective. Well done, indeed.”

  He stopped clapping, and let the smile slip from his face. “Yes, I knew what she intended to do. And having heard her rehearse it once, I thought I knew what to expect.”

  Logau remained silent after that, until Gronow set his coffee cup down with a clank and said, “Well?” Logau looked at him with his eyebrows raised. “What did you expect?” Gronow’s voice dripped with impatience.

  “I really do not recall, now,” Logau replied, “but what we heard was far more than I expected. Gods and little demons,” Plavius frowned at his blasphemy, but Logau continued on, “if she had called for a march on Berlin after that song, I would have been in the front rank. Me; resident skeptic, Stoic, and curmudgeon in training after my august father. I am not at all sure that the wax of Ulysses would prevail against the siren’s voice of Frau Linder.”

  Plavius checked his coffee cup in its motion to his mouth, and returned it to the table. “Along that thought…” He reached inside his coat and drew a page out that he handed to Logau. “The CoC girls were handing these out this morning. Doing a brisk trade, they were.”

  Logau unfolded the page into a broadsheet. It was a momentary shock to see the words he had penned for Marla in print under a screaming banner. But then the reality of who had to be involved sank in, and a sardonic smile crossed his face.

  “Of course. It was to be expected that the good Gunther Achterhof would not let this opportunity slip.”

  The conversation turned after that to questions of what Gronow would publish in the next issue of Black Tomcat Magazine, as well as their various projects, such as Gronow’s libretto for the opera Arthur Rex. It turned, that is, until Gronow himself jerked upright coughing and spewing coffee from his mouth.

  Logau leaned back to make sure that none of the spew landed on his clothing. He frowned at his friend. “Coffee is for drinking, not breathing. And what, may I ask, brought on this fit?”

  Gronow held up a hand until he finally could clear his throat and get a breath of air. “It just dawned on me—she’s going to sing Guinevere in my opera!”

  Logau began to laugh at the panic-stricken look on his friend’s face.

  Chapter 30

  Magdeburg Times-Journal

  January 21, 1636

  Editoria—On the Notes of Angels—by Friedrich von Logau

  It was my extreme good fortune to spend a good part of my evening last Saturday night in an establishment called the Green Horse. I and some of my friends had gone there to hear the up-timer—no, she would object to my characterizing her in that manner—to hear that most accomplished of musicians, Frau Marla Linder, hold court. She and her band of Companions took the field, if you will allow me to mix metaphors, and salvoed song after song at those who were seated before her. Slow songs, fast songs; serious songs, funny songs. And she had us all in her hand, going where she directed, laughing and crying in turn.

  Those of you who have heard of Frau Linder, but have not actually heard her, may think to brush aside the oft-heard statement that she sings with the voice of heaven. Do not do so. If you have been reading my columns here, you know that I seldom permit hyperbole to go unchallenged. Therefore, be suitably impressed when I say that to call her voice angelic or heavenly is not an insult to heaven or an overstatement of her gifts as a musician. I have been to Rome. I have heard the finest voices in the world there, and in Florence, and in Venice. And I say to you, that she is not their equal, but beyond them—ne plus ultra, if you will.

  I could end this article at this point, with a paean to the good Frau Linder. But in all truth, I told you all of that in order to now tell you this story, with words that cannot help but be inadequate to the task. Saturday night, at the last, Frau Linder proved to be an outstanding general as she unveiled her greatest stratagem which had been held in reserve all evening. She sang a song: a song that was flavored with bitterness, and rue, and gall; a song that stirred the blood of everyone there and called for blood; a song that fired the soul and chilled the sp
irit; a song that, although no names were named, called for all the Germanies to stand forth; and she aimed it at Berlin. She aimed it at the heart of Chancellor The Ox, and the herd that has gathered behind him. Like Diana the Huntress she stood forth, aimed, and loosed. And she loosed no shaft of Eros, but rather of Eris; Mars himself would not be shamed by what was sent forth that night.

  In the light of day, I marvel at Frau Linder: for her voice, for her passion, for the hard steel of her convictions. At the risk of evoking the anger of the pastors, I will paraphrase Our Saviour: “I have not found such passion, no, not in all the Germanies.”

  As for Saturday night, let me end this rumination with another paraphrase, this time from the English playwright William Shakespeare:

  And gentlemen in Germany, now a-bed

  Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

  And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

  “I was there that night, to hear Frau Linder sing.”

  Andreas Schardius lowered the paper and stared at the wall opposite his desk. He laid a finger from nose to chin, thinking. After a moment, he removed it and nodded. “Interesting,” he said. “So the angel is not ignorant of where she is, after all.”

  He leaned back in his chair and thought some more.

  In his youth, Schardius had spent some time in northern Italy, mostly at Venice and Florence. He had enjoyed both cities and their societies greatly, but even now, years later, Florence called to him. It was there he had seen Francesca Caccini, La Cecchina, the nightingale of the Medici court. She was a few years older than him, and wasn’t exactly beautiful, but she was a most exciting person to be around, in several senses of the word.

  And he had lusted after her; there was no other word for it. He had wanted to possess her so badly he had ached. But even as a near-callow youth, and even in that state of constant arousal, he had retained enough wisdom to understand that she was under the protection of the Medici family, which was a line that he had dared not cross.