by Eric Flint
He came to the end of his notes. “The real problems that I still have, from a military standpoint, are the ones who have retreated into other lands they hold that are outside our jurisdiction. Those lands that are surrounded by Ansbach, Nuernberg, or Bayreuth. I can’t chase them down there, myself, and I can’t let the ram’s people get rambunctious either. Too much danger of offending some of Gustavus Adolphus’ important allies.”
His report finished, Scott closed the notebook and looked up.
“Hearts and Minds?” Steve Salatto asked.
“Self-government in Franconia is proceeding normally,” said Johnnie F. “That is, things are messy, disorganized, imperfect, and squabbly. Tithe compensation committees are disputing with water rights committees, neither of which have much in common with the weights and measures people, none of whom can seem to get a firm answer out of Magdeburg, because the parliament up there is passing things without appropriating the funds to implement them. Lord, how I hate unfunded mandates.”
He bestowed a cheerful grin on everyone at the table. “All of which is just fine with me. I prefer any amount of mess and imperfection to a slick authoritarian regime any day.”
“Does anyone have an update on what’s happening at the Fulda end of things? I’m afraid that we’ve pretty much been leaving Wes Jenkins to his own devices.” Steve Salatto was moving through the morning’s agenda fairly briskly.
Weckherlin looked up from his note-taking, annoyed that young Samuel Ebert, whom he had left in his place at the desk in the outer office, was interrupting the meeting.
“My apologies, but he says that it is very important.” Ebert came around the table and handed a note to Salatto.
“Who is Constantin Ableidinger?” Steve asked, after scanning it.
“I am not familiar with the name, Herr Salatto,” Weckherlin answered.
Ebert opened his mouth, looked at Maydene Utt, then closed it again. The senior auditors were not particularly happy that their juniors had been drafted for other jobs in the administration during this summer’s crisis—particularly not after the Krausold debacle. Ebert, Heubel, and Fischer spent a lot of their time keeping their mouths closed and trying to look inconspicuous.
“Why does he want to see me?”
“Since I don’t know who he is, I don’t have the slightest idea.” Weckherlin again.
Ebert opened his mouth. “Excuse me, Herr Salatto. But I believe that Herr Haun may know him. And Herr Blackwell.”
Steve looked at them. Both shook their heads. “I’ve heard the name,” Johnnie F. said, “but I’ve never met him.”
“Put him off.” Steve waved Ebert out of the room.
He didn’t move. Looked at Herr Haun and Herr Blackwell. “Sirs, forgive me. He gave me this to show you.”
Scott reached out his hand. Ebert was handing him a well-read copy of Common Sense.
“Well, I will be goddamned.” He passed it over to Johnnie F. “Remember him, now? He told us we’d likely meet again, if he wasn’t unlucky.”
Johnnie F. stared down at the book in his hands. “Him? He’s Ableidinger?”
“Come on, Scott, what’s going on?” Steve was becoming impatient.
“You’ve got Big Bad Brillo himself standing in your outer office. And now we’ve finally put a name to him. Not just that ‘Helmut’ alias, or whatever you’d call it. What in hell is he doing here? Did he just walk in?”
“Yes sir,” Ebert said. “Like anyone else with business in the palace.”
Steve was looking at young Ebert. “How come you thought that Johnnie F. and Scott would know him?”
“Well, they’ve been up there. To where he has his headquarters now, on the Coburg border, since they decided Frankenwinheim wasn’t safe enough. Several times. I just assumed that they would. And Herr Hawker in Bamberg has the Hearts and Minds team’s printing done by Frau Else Kronacher. I know that from checking the invoices.”
“You’ve known his name all along?”
“Not his name, no, Herr Salatto. But I recognized him certainly, when he walked in. No one who has ever heard the ram speak is likely to forget him. I’ve heard him. So have Fischer and Heubel.”
Ebert paused. “Herr Krausold did, too. Before, ah... We’re, well, we’re down-timers, you know. People don’t notice us, the way they do you. And we’re young, the three of us. Like most of the people who go to his speeches. They don’t turn anyone away.”
Anita raised her eyebrows. “Frau Kronacher?”
“The woman who is called ‘the ewe.’” From Ebert’s tone of voice, it was clear he assumed that everyone knew that. “She prints all the pamphlets coming out of Bamberg.”
Everyone was staring at him. Nervously, the young German intern looked to Johnnie F. for support.
“But—Herr Haun. Surely you knew this? You visit her shop every time you’re in Bamberg.”
All stares shifted to Johnnie F. He cleared his throat.
“Well. Ah.”
Steve Salatto rolled his eyes. “Jesus H. Christ. The idea, Johnnie, is that we’re supposed to win over their hearts and minds. Not—goddamit—the other way around.”
“Well,” Johnnie F. repeated. “Ah.”
Castle Bimbach, near Bayreuth, August, 1634
Emma Thornton still couldn’t quite believe this was really happening. It all seemed like something out of a bad movie.
Desperately, she looked over at Meyfarth, as if he might reassure her. But the Lutheran pastor’s face, though stiffly composed, was also as pale as a sheet.
Guess not.
Both of them were tied to chairs in the dungeon. Well, not exactly a “dungeon.” The big chamber was a half-basement, with narrow windows up on the walls, allowing some light into the room.
“Torture chamber,” she’d call it, except it really had more of a resemblance to a very primitive dentist’s office. Which didn’t make her feel any better at all. Especially given the “dentist” and his assistant.
The “dentist” wasn’t so bad, maybe. If he’d actually been a dentist. Just a man in late middle-age, round-shouldered and with something of a stoop, wearing a nondescript cloth coat.
The problem was that Emma knew his actual position. He was Freiherr von Bimbach’s official gaol-keeper and executioner—a post which, in this time and place, doubled as “official torturer.”
His much younger journeyman assistant was even worse. No unobtrusive cloth coat for him. He was wearing the sort of outfit that blacksmiths wore while working in their shops. And he was just about as big and bulky as any blacksmith Emma had ever seen.
There was even a brazier glowing in a corner. With tongs being heated in it!
Unbelievably, things got worse. The door to the chamber was opened by a soldier, who ushered in the lord of the castle. He was holding something in his hand, but Emma was too pre-occupied with the Freiherr himself to notice what it was.
Emma stared at him. This was the first good, up-close look she’d had of Freiherr Fuchs von Bimbach since her kidnapping.
His appearance was... not promising. Bimbach was in his forties, stocky to the point of being overweight, and with a hard and heavy face. Clean-shaven, which made his jowls prominent.
He came right over to her and held up the object in his hand. Now, she saw that it was one of the pieces of Mormon literature she’d hastily stuck into her pocket when she’d been lured away from her stand in Bamberg.
“You are a heretic,” von Bimbach stated. “Here is the proof of it. Heresy is a capital crime, and I am charged with enforcing the law. And I have the Halsgericht.”
Emma rallied her will. “Not the new laws. You can’t—”
Von Bimbach slapped her across the face with the booklet. “You do not have permission to speak.”
He moved over to Meyfarth and held the booklet under his nose. “And you! A man who claims to be a Lutheran pastor, no less. You have tolerated this—no, have conspired with her.”
Meyfarth said nothing. But he return
ed the Freiherr’s glare without flinching.
After a moment, von Bimbach turned away. The soldier who had ushered him in was still standing at the open door. The Freiherr beckoned and the man brought him over a packet. Apparently he’d been carrying it with him.
Von Bimbach went over to a nearby table and spread open the packet. Emma could now see that it contain paper and writing material.
“You will compose a letter to your authorities,” von Bimbach stated. “To abuse the term. Both of you. And you will sign it.”
“I will not!” Emma hissed. Meyfarth shook his head.
Von Bimbach gave them a long, heavy stare. “Yes, you will.”
By now, Emma’s fear has been replaced by sheer outrage. “I will not! Go ahead and torture me, if you want to. I still won’t!”
The Freiherr’s sneer was something out of a lousy movie, too. “Not you, witch. For my negotiations—unfortunately—I shall probably need you and the so-called pastor intact. Still, you will the compose the letter.”
He swiveled his head to the soldier again. “Bring in the old woman.”
* * *
“You promised me they wouldn’t hurt her!” Judith Neideckerin shrieked at Noelle, half-rising from the chair in her chambers.
Noelle couldn’t meet her eyes, yet. All she could do was stare out of the window.
Another shriek. “Let’s kill him! Now!”
“We can’t,” Noelle hissed.
“You have a gun! An up-time gun! Don’t lie to me, I know you have it!”
That was finally enough to break Noelle’s paralysis. She spun around and faced Judith squarely.
“Yes, I do.” She reached into the pocket of her heavy skirt and drew out the Browning automatic. “Here it is. I’ve got it loaded, too. But does it look like a magic wand to you? It’s got less than ten rounds. And they’re not very powerful. What we call a .32 caliber.”
Hissing, again: “A so-called ‘lady’s gun,’ that Dan Frost thought I could handle better. As slender as I am. Damn him!”
She stuffed the pistol back into the pocket. “But it doesn’t matter, Judith. Even if I had a .44 Magnum—and assuming I could handle the great thing—it wouldn’t matter. The soldiers are on alert, all over the Schloss.”
“The staff—”
Noelle shook her head. “Not now. Not yet. They’re not ready to take on the Freiherr’s mercenaries, all by themselves. And if they did, they’d probably be beaten down, anyway. Except for the blacksmith and his apprentices—maybe some of the stable hands—they’re mostly just clerks and servants.”
Judith slumped back into her chair and lowered her head into her hands. Then, started sobbing.
Noelle went over and placed an arm around her shoulder. “I don’t think he’s planning to kill your mother.”
“He’s hurting her,” came the words between the sobs. Then, Judith lowered her hands and stared at the floor through tear-filled eyes.
“For the first time—ever—I wish the swine had sired a child on me. So I could strangle it.”
Noelle tightened the arm. “No, Judith. You wouldn’t.”
After a while, she added: “Just wait. There’ll be a time. Soon, I think.”
* * *
The torturer and his assistant had the old woman strapped into the contrivance that had reminded Emma at first of a very primitive dentist’s chair. Except now she could see that it was more like the equipment that hospitals used for women in labor. The pastor’s landlady was secured to the wooden base of the horrible thing with a heavy leather belt across her waist. Her hands were immobilized by other straps and her feet had been locked into stirrups.
Her legs were half-spread and bent upward, removing any support. The torturer pushed back the woman’s skirt, exposing her left shin.
“Now.”
His beefy assistant raised the iron bar in his hands and brought it down. The sound of the breaking bone was quite audible all through the chamber.
“I’ll write it! I’ll write it!” Emma shouted, her voice so loud it almost drowned the old woman’s cry of pain.
Von Bimbach looked at the pastor. Meyfarth swallowed.
“The other leg,” the Freiherr commanded.
The torturer and his assistant had already moved to the opposite side of the apparatus. Again, the torturer shoved aside the skirt; again, the iron bar came down.
“I’ll write it,” said Meyfarth. His voice sounded like a croak. Emma could barely hear the words, beneath the screams.
Chapter 15:
“The ram has taken Halsgericht now”
Bamberg, early September, 1634
“This has to be,” Anita Masaniello said, “one of the slimiest letters I have ever read.”
“Ah,” Constantin Ableidinger answered, “it was written, of course, by Dr. Lenz. ‘Pestilenz.’ Who delivered it in person.”
“At least, apparently, Emma and Meyfarth are alive. And still in fairly good shape, if we can rely on their notes. But I simply cannot believe the sheer idiocy of this.”
“The Freiherr believes, of course, that the location of his Schloss, well within the borders of Bayreuth, immunizes him from all serious danger.”
Anita, since coming up to Bamberg the previous month to take charge of connecting the dots between the Thorntons, Meyfarth, the Neidecker woman who had been his landlady, the Freiherr, the printer’s widow who was the ewe—though not bearing any actual resemblance to the logo of Ewegenia—and who was still, following the city council elections, locked into a battle with the local guild on the topic of forced marriage of said daughter to a candidate of its choice, and anything else she could put through her analytical techniques, had gotten pretty good at parsing Ableidinger’s conversation.
“Believes?”
“Margrave Christian has accepted oaths of allegiance from many of the farmers and townsmen who were previously considered to be the subjects of the lesser nobility within his territories.”
“Nice way to put it.” She shifted uncomfortably. The theory had been that last month, already, she would be on her way back to Grantville to have the baby at Leahy Medical Center with an up-time doctor doing the honors for the Salatto blessed event. Then Ableidinger showed up in Wuerzburg. Plus a sudden SOS from the Fulda people that drew off a half dozen of the Wuerzburg staff.
She looked down at her stomach. If they didn’t make progress about getting Emma and Meyfarth back pretty soon, she was going to have the baby in the Bamberg headquarters of the Franconian administration. Probably behind her desk; then pick herself up like a pioneer woman and go back to negotiating. Von Bimbach was demanding that they barbecue the ram. Not just Brillo. He wanted to fill Franconia with roast mutton.
“So he wants to parley.”
“The Freiherr says that he is willing to return them unharmed. On reasonable terms. Reasonable from his perspective. And parley only under the conditions that he set.”
Anita picked up the letter again. By one corner, carefully, between thumb and forefinger. “Why me? Why not you, Vince?
The question was reasonable enough. Vince Marcantonio was the Franconian administration’s head in Bamberg. He should have been prestigious enough for any Freiherr to meet with.
Vince Marcantonio looked a little abashed. “Previous intemperate statements about what I would do to the certain parts of the man’s anatomy if I ever caught him, I’m afraid. Wade Jackson said worse. We were more than a little pissed that he plucked them out right from under our noses. And a reporter overheard us.”
“Curses. I suppose that Cliff Priest can’t possibly get back here, and then up to Bayreuth, by the deadline this guy has set?”
“Not a prayer.”
“Okay, go back to Lenz. Say that I’ll go up and talk to the Freiherr. Not in his Schloss. No way am I going inside the man’s walls, not if I could bring the whole USE army with me, which I can’t. Outside. In a field. With a big enough batch of troops along to make a difference. Tom O’Brien and his pick of the c
rop. As many as von Bimbach will let him bring.”
“And,” Constantin Ableidinger said, “stipulate that people have the right to come and watch. Ordinary people. Standing around the edges of the field. Witnesses to make sure that Fuchs von Bimbach attempts no treacherous undertaking. He can hardly object to that.”
Enclave within Bayreuth, September, 1634
The negotiations were going well, Freiherr von Bimbach thought. The fact that Salatto’s heavily pregnant wife had actually appeared reinforced his convictions about the importance of his hostages. Which meant that his strategy was going well. Once she acceded to the demands that Lenz was presenting, he would have humiliated the man, Salatto, doubly by doing it through the woman. Much more effective than dealing with the administrator directly.
Yes, he could afford to be quite intransigent. Require them to give him the ram and the ewe to get the hostages back; send out propaganda proclaiming that this showed how little the USE cared for the Franconians by comparison to his own people, while hanging the rebels. Demonstrate to the Swedes that only he was capable of bringing sanity back to the region.
Lenz thought that he was doing well on the Freiherr’s behalf. He had not conceded a single point. All they had to do now was wait for the up-timers to admit that he had won.
* * *
Breaking into the torture chamber proved to be as simple as opening the door and walking in. There had been no soldier standing guard, as Noelle had feared there might be. That wasn’t really surprising, though. Most if not all of the soldiers still in the Schloss were at the windows on the upper floors, watching the parlay taking place on the field beyond the castle.