1636- the Flight of the Nightingale

by David Carrico

  “Hmm,” Christoph reread the first paragraph to himself. “Something big must have happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know how Mama would go on and on about how Johann was so lucky to have his position in Suhl, how he would be able to become a Joshua to Stadtpfeifer Hoffmann’s Moses, and how it was understood that he would marry the Stadtpfeifer’s daughter.”

  Heinrich made as if to spit. “Ja, Mama was so looking forward to having that Barbara as her daughter-in-law. Nasty Scheinheilige, she is.”

  “Yes, well…” Christoph found himself in grudging agreement with his brother, although he might not have worded his opinion so strongly. “Hypocrite though she may be, it would appear from this…” he waved the letter, “…that our Johann has come to his senses.”

  “Ja.” Heinrich’s eyes grew dreamy, and he smiled the smile he wore when he watched girls walk down the street. “Magdeburg. The emperor’s new capital…where fortunes and reputations can be made.” His gaze sharpened and focused on Christoph’s face. “When do we leave?”

  Christoph scanned through the rest of the letter. “He says to give Papa’s clavier to Uncle Andreas, store as much of the furniture as we can in his barn, and sell the rest. So, maybe a week, maybe two.”

  “Good! Let’s get started.”

  “Not so fast,” Christoph said. “Listen to the rest of what he has to say.”

  “He would,” Heinrich muttered. “More eldest brother talk…” his voice trailed off.

  “Shh. Listen.”

  When you come, wend your way through Grantville. You know by now the town really exists, and the location of it. You will be surprised at much of the town, and some of it will make you wonder why there has been such a clamor about the place. The people seem odd at first, but by their lights they are a decent folk.

  “Idiot,” Heinrich said. “Of course we know about Grantville.”

  “Shh. You said it yourself; he’s just being the eldest brother.”

  When you get there, have someone direct you to the High School. There seek out Masters Marcus Wendell and Atwood Cochran, lecturers and musicians. They will play for you music from the future such as you have never heard. And some of it is by a man named Bach. Go; hear it, then come to me in Magdeburg. The three of us will have much to talk about.

  Johann Bach

  Magdeburg

  Christoph lowered the paper. The two brothers Bach stared at each other, eyebrows raised and eyes wide, all complaints and gripes and slurs forgotten. Music from the future—by a Bach.

  Magdeburg

  February 1635

  Franz entered the bedroom and closed the door to keep the warmth from the small stove in the room. He looked to where Marla sat on the stool before her dressing table, combing her long black hair in the candlelight. She looked up at him and smiled, which sent a flood of warmth through him. Even after almost a year of marriage, he still marveled that she, who doubtless could have had her pick of the available up-time men, had seen something inside a crippled and bitter down-timer; something that drew her to him. Or perhaps, something that drew him to her, as a moth circled a flame…the attraction to her was that strong, that natural, that intense. Almost it was enough to make him a Calvinist, for to his mind it would have required the sovereign hand of God to bring her to love him. Of a certainty, he found nothing in himself that deserved her.

  “What are you thinking, love?”

  Marla’s voice drew him from his reverie. “How much I love you,” he responded, then warmed again as her smile flashed wider. He walked over to her, bent to kiss her upraised lips, then reached to pick up the hairbrush from the dressing table. She sat up straight as he began to draw the brush through her thick mane with long slow strokes.

  This had become one of their little rituals, something that they did for themselves. Marla’s hair was long enough and thick enough that it was hard for her to tend to all of it, and Franz had early on taken over the brushing of it. He loved the silken feel of her hair, and from the expression on Marla’s face in the mirror on the wall that she had brought from Grantville, she was undoubtedly enjoying it as well.

  They didn’t talk for some time, just enjoying the intimacy of the moment. Franz paused for a moment, lifting a tress of the liquid ebony before him. Half-crippled his left hand might be, but the nerves still worked, and the feeling of the hair sliding across his fingers and palm left them tingling. He bent to deeply inhale the fragrance of it.

  When he straightened, Marla had opened her eyes and was watching him from the mirror with an expression that reminded him of the portrait the up-timers called the Mona Lisa. He smiled back and resumed brushing.

  “So why were you late getting home tonight?” Marla asked.

  Franz chuckled. “Johann Bach asked if he could talk to me after the orchestra rehearsal. We went to the Green Horse.”

  “I thought I smelled beer on you when you came in.” Her smile turned impish.

  Franz raised his right hand. “Oath to Heaven’s throne, I only had one, and I did not finish it.”

  “So what did he want?”

  “It took him forever to spit it out. He kept hemming and hawing and dancing a gavotte around the outside of it, but when he finally asked his question of me I nearly bit my cheeks bloody to keep from laughing.”

  “So what did he say? Out with it, and no dancing around from you!” In the mirror Franz could see Marla’s eyes were dancing themselves.

  “He wanted to know how to court an up-time woman.” Franz kept his expression as straight as he could, and watched in the mirror as Marla’s jaw dropped. The surprise lasted only a moment, then she began to laugh. Peal after peal of silvery laughter sounded in the room, and Franz felt his own face relax as he began to chuckle.

  “Oh…” Marla finally said, gasping, “oh, that’s too funny. After the way he’s been circling around Staci for the last few months, it’s about time, but still…” she started chuckling herself, “…wait ’til Staci hears about this.”

  Franz started the brush moving again. “Now, I would ask that you not tell her.” Marla’s eyebrows went up in the mirror, and he replied, “Let them find their own way, my dear. It would be best.”

  Marla’s mouth quirked, then smoothed out. “Okay, I suppose you’re right,” she said. “But think of the fun I could have had with that.” Franz grinned at her. “So what did you tell him?”

  “Well, I thought of quoting that song from Camelot to him…”

  “‘How to Handle a Woman,’” Marla interjected.

  “Yes, that one. And what it says about love is true enough; but I thought he probably needed a little more than that to serve as his ground for the music he would write with her. So, I told him that from my limited experience up-time women are less concerned about the property and the furnishings and the spices, and more concerned with equality and equitability and trust. I told him to treat her with the same respect and care that he would give Master Schütz, and to listen to her when she talked to him about the things that are important to her.”

  Marla sat for a while as Franz continued brushing. At length she said, “That’s probably the best advice you could give him. I hope he listens to it. I’d be pretty unhappy if he or anyone else hurts Staci.”

  Franz shrugged. “We shall see. He’s a fine musician, and appears to be a good man, but…”

  “Yeah, but…”

  Franz had been counting the brush strokes while they talked. “One hundred.” He set the brush on the table and stepped back to admire his handiwork. Marla’s hair gleamed like an ebon waterfall and it flowed to her waist. She stood and began to remove her robe. He moved the stool over and stood behind her, resting his chin on her nightgown-clad shoulder and crossing his arms beneath her breasts. She raised a hand to cup his cheek, and they stood thus for long moments, staring at each other in the mirror.

  “I would wish them to love each other as much as I love you,” he whispered after a time. “They cannot
possibly love each other more.”

  Marla turned in his grasp and gave him a warm and lingering kiss. “Come to bed, love.”

  Franz watched her move to the bed, then bent and blew out the candle.

  March 1635

  “Johann!”

  “Brother!”

  Johann Bach’s head snapped up. There were only two men on the face of Earth who would call him that, and he knew those voices. “Christoph? Heinrich?”

  “Here!”

  And there they were, hurrying down the street toward him. In a moment they were exchanging hearty embraces and slapping shoulders. After the welcome, Johann stepped back, a hand on each brother’s shoulder.

  “Look at you. It has been what, over a year since I last saw you? Christoph, you are broader across the shoulders than I am now. And Heinrich, I am glad to see that you can finally muster a proper beard. My last glimpse of you, your face looked more like a moth-eaten scabrous fox pelt.”

  He dropped his hands and clapped them together. “So! What did you think of Grantville?”

  “Amazing!” Christoph’s voice was a light tenor, which climbed into his highest register whenever he was excited. It was as high now as Johann had ever heard it. “I mean, it was no eternal Jerusalem with golden streets, but it was so different from everything.”

  “The up-timers were…different.” Heinrich’s baritone had a diffident tone. He wasn’t used to being part of adult discussions yet, Johann thought to himself. “They are different, and they are not different,” he replied. “The things they know, their attitudes, those may be different. But their wants and desires and passions—those not so much. Their musicians love the music, for example.”

  Johann took his brothers by the arm, turned them, and headed down the street. “So, did you hear the music I told you to find?”

  Both young men nodded vigorously. “Indeed,” Christoph responded. “And it was as you said—music such as we have never heard. Instruments that do not exist, harmonies that are rare, tonalities that our masters say should not be used, and above all, the many new forms.”

  Johann looked at Heinrich. The youngest Bach brother shrugged and pointed at Christoph. “He said it all. Except that the music of this Johann Sebastian Bach was among the best.”

  Johann stopped for a moment. “Yes, I agree. Old Bach, as the up-timer musicians sometimes call him, was more than gifted, more than a genius. He was a phenomenon, and they owe more to him than they realize.” He started walking again. “With that name, he had to have been some kind of relation to us, but I was not able to determine it while I was there. I commissioned a research to provide as much information about Johann Sebastian and his family as can be found in the great library there, but they were unable to complete the work before I had to leave. I really hoped to have the results by now, but it has not arrived yet. Soon, perhaps.”

  Christoph laughed, echoed by Heinrich. He pulled a packet of folded papers from inside his jacket and slapped it across Johann’s chest. “Soon is today, brother. We were in the library ourselves, reading a book called Harvard Dictionary of Music, learning more about the up-time music, when we met Brother Johann. When he understood who we were, he immediately took us to the bank because he had delivered the research results to them only the day before. The…what did they call her, Heinrich?”

  “The escrow officer.”

  “Yes, the escrow officer accepted that we were your brothers after reading the letter you had sent to us. We told her we were coming to Magdeburg to join you, so she gave us the information.”

  Johann looked down at where his hands were holding the papers that Christoph had thrust on him. “You…” Words failed him at that moment. The realization that he might be holding the answers to his questions suddenly burst in his mind. He jerked upright. “Come!” He took off down the street at a pace not much below a run, with the sound of his brothers’ steps behind him and people scattering to each side ahead of him.

  * * *

  “Well, that is clear enough.” Johann took one more glance at the page he held angled to the light of the candle before he set it on top of the stack of other pages brought from Grantville. He took a pull at his mug, swallowing disappointment along with the beer.

  The Green Horse was relatively quiet. It was full, but there was no music, so only the conversations were filling the air. Johann wished for a moment that Marla and Franz and the others were here. He could have listened to the music and put off the strange hurt he was feeling.

  “What is clear enough?” Heinrich lowered his own mug.

  “Well, according to what Brother Johann was able to determine, he,” Johann leveled a finger at Christoph, “was the grandfather of Johann Sebastian Bach. You and I will have to make do with being known as the men who would have been the great-uncles of Old Bach.”

  Christoph looked very pleased with himself as Johann took another mouthful of beer.

  “Do not get above yourself, brother,” Heinrich murmured with a wicked grin. “The man will never exist. There is no fame from being the grandfather of one who is less than a ghost.” Johann laughed outright at that as Christoph’s brow wrinkled.

  “It seems,” Johann picked up the thread of his thought, “that in the up-time the Bach family was even more widespread in Old Bach’s time than it is now. The three of us were the beginning of what was known as the Erfurt Bachs.”

  “Why?” Christoph questioned, looking down into an empty mug with a puzzled expression on his face.

  “Well, in truth,” Johann replied, “the Erfurt council has sent me a letter asking if I would be willing to be considered as director of music. If Grantville had not appeared, I probably would have left Schweinfurt and taken the Erfurt position.”

  “And married Barbara Hoffmann, no doubt.”

  Johann lowered his eyebrows in a glare at Heinrich, but did not respond to his dig directly. “I do not now intend to go to Erfurt, and I doubt that you will return to Wechmar. According to the up-timers, the river of time has been wrenched from its erstwhile banks by Grantville being sent back to us. It will not return to its previous bed, but instead is carving new channels. The Erfurt Bachs will instead become the Magdeburg Bachs.” He stared at the wall between his brothers, eyes unfocused, seeing with an inner vision. “And while we may not have genius equal to that of our now-never-to-be-realized grandson and great-nephew, we will collect all his work, we will preserve it, we will perform it, and it will become a cornerstone in the edifice of music from this time forward.”

  The younger Bach brothers were silent for a moment. “You have thought on this, obviously,” Christoph at last ventured.

  “Oh, aye,” Johann’s eyes focused back on his brothers’ faces, “it has been near the forefront of my thoughts since I first learnt of Old Bach’s music. God will not allow that brilliance to fade into obscurity. He preserved it in the up-time; He will preserve it in our time. We will be the tools by which He will accomplish it.”

  Johann knew his voice had become intense. From the expressions on his brothers’ faces, he suspected that his own expression was in line with his voice. They had best get used to it, he thought, gazing again into the mists of the future. This was at one and the same time a legacy to be tended and a challenge to be faced.

  God may be drawing an Escher work with Grantville at the center—He would not find the Bachs lacking. They were Bachs—that was enough.

  * * *

  “Well, what shall we do today?” Christoph asked as they left the rooming house the next morning. Johann stifled a yawn as old Pieter the porter shut the door behind Heinrich, who trooped down the steps to stand with his brothers.

  “Bread first,” Johann muttered. He led the way to Das Haus Des Brotes, cracking a huge yawn every few steps. When they arrived, Frau Kreszentia Traugottin verh. Ostermännin, the proprietress, was sweeping the steps with a broom. Her husband, Anselm, was the baker; she handled the sales of the bread.

  “A good day to you, Frau Traugottin,�
�� Johann called out as they neared the bakery, which occupied a corner on one of the busiest intersections in the exurb of Greater Magdeburg.

  Frau Kreszentia looked up and smiled. “Ah, Herr Bach. You are out and about early this morning.”

  Johann shrugged. “There is work to be done, and it won’t get done if I’m sleeping while the sun is up.”

  “So true,” she replied, “so true. And who might these young men be?”

  “My brothers,” Johann responded, “Christoph and Heinrich.” The two bowed slightly as their names were given.

  Frau Kreszentia looked at them for a moment. “A definite family resemblance. But with three of you, one must be a bit of a rascal, a trickster.”

  Johann and Christoph both pointed at Heinrich and said in unison, “Him.” Heinrich didn’t deny it, but did his best to appear innocent.

  “Let me guess—the youngest?”

  At that, Heinrich grinned and nodded.

  “Aha,” she said with a bit of a smile of her own. “I can see I need to be sending word to all the taverns to warn the girls who serve that there is a new rascal in town.”

  All of them got a good chuckle out of that.

  Frau Kreszentia opened the door and led the way into the shop, to step behind the counter. “Three of the regular?” she asked Johann.

  He nodded, and she turned and pulled three of the small loaves and handed them out to the three brothers. “Thank you, Frau Traugottin,” they chorused, as Johann pulled ten pfennigs from his pocket and offered them to the proprietress.

  “Call me Zenzi,” she said. “Everyone does. I’m the sister and cousin and friend to so many folk, I just let everyone use the name. So much so that when someone says Frau Kreszentia or Frau Traugottin, I look around to see who they’re talking to.”