Casey smiled. “Yep. You see before you Mrs. Matowski’s two most experienced female dancers.”
“I thought you were teachers,” Christoph said.
“We’re teachers to support ourselves, to buy bread and the occasional mug of beer or glass of wine,” Staci replied. “But speaking for myself, I live to dance. I want to keep up-time dance alive, and when I can’t dance any longer, I want to teach it so it will live on.”
There was a moment of silence after that, then Casey said, “Well, we need to call it a night. School starts pretty early in the morning.”
“Right,” Staci agreed.
The two young women stood up, stepping over the benches and putting on their jackets after they got untangled from the furniture. Johann stood as well.
“Good night, Johann,” Staci said with a smile and a touch to his arm. “Nice to meet you, Christoph and Heinrich. I’m sure we’ll see you again some time.”
“G’night,” Casey said.
“Good night,” the Bach brothers chorused, and the two young women walked off together.
Johann sat back down. The three brothers looked at each other, and in unison picked up their mugs and drained the remaining contents. They stood, and Johann waved toward the other end of the table.
“You calling it a night, Johann?” Marla called out.
“Work to do tomorrow,” he replied with a shrug.
Farewells were called back and forth, and Johann led his brothers out of the tavern. Once on the street, they flanked him as they moved down the street. It was late enough that there were no heavy wagons out, and only a periodic carriage or cab to contest them for the roadway. Hands in pockets, they walked along.
“How was your baptism in up-timer music?” Johann asked with a chuckle.
“That was an immersion, not a simple baptism,” Christoph said. “Is it all like that? The up-timer music, I mean?”
“Surely not,” Heinrich said from Johann’s other side. “The Bach music we heard certainly wasn’t.”
“No, it’s not all like that,” Johann said. “But you have to remember that Old Bach lived and wrote seventy to one hundred and fifty years from now. But there was another two hundred plus years of musical development and changes after him. And a good many of the changes were apparently due to the influence of aboriginal and tribal music from all over the world, but especially southern Africa. Those influenced richer, darker harmonies and much more complex rhythms. But they take some getting used to.” He chuckled again.
“Be honest, now,” Heinrich protested. “You have not listened to that much of it, have you?”
“No,” Johann admitted. “And I cannot say that I like a lot of what I have heard. But I have been told that familiarity will breed at least tolerance, if not a certain taste.” He shrugged and held out his hands to each side, palms up. “The same miracle that brought us Old Bach also brought us the blues. We will have to learn from both, I believe. But our call is to preserve and spread abroad our Bach heritage.”
“Agreed,” Christoph said, and Heinrich threw in an affirmative grunt.
They were another half a block down the street toward the rooming house when Christoph said, “You are thirty years old, Johann.”
“As of last November twenty-sixth, yes, I am. What of it?”
“She looks like a child. They both do. Is she really a teacher, or does she just tend children not much younger than herself?”
“Part of that is because Fräulein Staci is small—short, that is, and slender. The French word petite applies. And part of it is because she was raised in the up-time, with their abundance of good food and excellent medical care. Like most up-time women, she looks younger than she really is. No plague scars, either. But she’s probably older than the two of you.”
“What?” Heinrich exclaimed. “She cannot be that. Can she?” He sounded almost insulted from his august age of nineteen. Christoph was frowning a little, obviously thinking there was no way that Staci was older than he was.
Johann chuckled, taking a bit of pleasure from being able to puncture their pomposity. “I believe she is twenty-two. Frau Marla is a few months younger. I do not know about Fräulein Casey, but she is probably about the same age.”
“I’m twenty-two,” Christoph protested.
“Staci’s birthday is in February,” Johann said with a grin.
Christoph muttered as it was proven she was indeed older. The two younger brothers mulled that over as they walked.
“That is hard to believe,” Christoph said at last, “but I must take your word for it. And it would explain their control and manners. But even so, even if we give her those years, that’s a bit young to marry, is it not?”
“Not that much,” Johann said. “Not by our standards, even, and definitely not by theirs. It was not uncommon in the up-time for up-timers to marry as young as eighteen, and sometimes even earlier. And it still is today.”
“So at twenty-two Fräulein Staci is perhaps a bit ripe by their standards?”
Johann chuckled again. “Perhaps. But they tend to not think that way.”
More steps in silence as his brothers mulled things over.
“She is pretty,” Heinrich offered, “certainly much more so than Herr Hoffmann’s daughter Barbara. But…”
“But what?”
“A dancer? One who performs in front of people? What would Mother have said?”
And that, Johann knew, was a question that he had to deal with.
The rest of the walk was made in silence.
* * *
Over the next several weeks, the two major concerns in Johann’s life progressed in parallel. Christoph and Heinrich rapidly became as familiar with the building plans as he was, and before long were on a first name basis with the construction crew, especially the carpenters and electrical workers, and most especially the cabinetmakers who were doing the fine and detail work for the organ works. Christoph had begun to take over the monitoring of that work, which freed up some of Johann’s time to begin working with the carpenters on the exact placement of the pipe ranks and the routing of the air pipes from the primary wind-chest to the smaller reservoirs behind the keyboard console and from the keyboard console to the ranks of pipes.
Heinrich, meanwhile, had become an unofficial almost-apprentice to Master Luder. He was spending much of his time at the whitesmith’s operation, watching the preparing and pouring of the sheet tin and the work to shape the sheets into the pipes. After a few false starts, the whitesmith had recalled the knack of shaping the voicing openings of the pipes, and true to their agreement, the night of the day that Johann had passed the first pipe had been a night of celebration at the Green Horse. Johann still remembered the head he had had the next morning.
So the organ was progressing well. His courting of Staci Matowski was progressing…or at least, he thought it was. Staci would meet with him once or twice a week, always in the company of others. She appeared to be enjoying his company…at least, she laughed a lot when they were together. But there were no signs that she was encouraging his courtship.
Of course, she was an up-timer. Her understanding of courtship was probably different than his. He wasn’t sure he knew what signs she would give.
The conversation he’d had with Franz Sylwester floated through Johann’s mind for perhaps the umpteenth time, to use one of Staci’s phrases. Give her equality, equitability, and trust. Listen to her. Well, perhaps he needed to give her that opportunity.
And so it was, in the third week of April, that Johann delivered himself to the front steps of the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls late in the Wednesday afternoon. He looked up at the front of the elaborate townhouse that currently housed the school, plus provided rooms for some of the teachers, and shook his head. Such grandeur, compared to the rooming house he was living in; for that matter, compared to the house in Wechmar he had spent most of his childhood in.
He shrugged, opened the door, and entered. As it happen
ed, Lady Beth Haygood was moving down the hallway toward him, papers in hand.
“Herr Bach,” she said in surprise. “Are you here to see me?”
“No, Frau Haygood,” he said. “At least, not this time.” They met fairly frequently to review the progress of the organ construction, so it was an easy assumption to make. “Actually, I would like to have a few words with Fräulein Matowski. Is…does…would she have time to see me now?”
Lady Beth looked at the up-time watch on her arm and smiled. “The teaching day is about over. She should be free in a few minutes. I’ll send a note up to her room to tell her you’re waiting on her. Why don’t you have a seat in the parlor?” She gestured to a wide doorway behind Johann.
He took her advice and entered the parlor room. Looking around, it was very rich, in a restrained sort of way. The walls were paneled in rich wood—he looked closer, even going so far as to touch one of the walls, and verified that it was a very nice walnut. Caryatid figures stood around the room against the walls, with paintings on the walls between them and smaller statues on rich stands scattered among some very elaborate furniture.
Johann didn’t dare sit down in the room, for fear that some dirt on his clothing would besmirch the fine fabrics on the furniture. He simply stood in the center of the room in the only clear spot, and turned slowly, taking in everything, and wondering how even up-timers could take this for granted. Then his gaze was drawn to the ceiling, where an incredible plaster expanse was painted with a bucolic scene of a group of women and children in a garden. The skill of the painter took his breath.
He didn’t know how long he stood gazing up, enraptured, before, “Johann?”
Johann turned back toward the fancy archway through which he had entered. Staci stood there, so slight, so small in a skirt and a tailored shirt, hands clasped in front of her, with a slight smile on her face. Her head was slightly tilted as she gazed at him. And for that moment, just that one timeless moment, Johann wanted to do nothing more than enfold her and take her into himself forever. The intensity of the feeling almost frightened him.
“Johann?” she said again.
“Umm,” he began, then had to stop and clear his throat. He looked around. “How can you live and work with this?” he said.
“Easy,” Staci said. “My room isn’t nearly this fancy, and my classroom just has plain tables and chairs in it. This is the fancy room for the important people to sit in.” She grinned, and it transformed her face from heart-shaped beauty to gamine in that instant. “Lady Beth must like you. She usually uses this room to receive people that she wants to impress.”
“Oh, I am impressed,” Johann muttered. “So impressed I am afraid to touch anything.”
“You’ve never been in a patron’s home before?”
“I have never had a patron like this.” He shook himself. “And that has nothing to do with why I’m here.”
Staci’s grin flashed again. “So why are you here?”
“Umm,” Johann took a deep breath, “to ask you to join me at Walcha’s Coffee House tomorrow evening for an evening of conversation, and…” he reached into an inner pocket of his jacket, “to bring you this.” He handed her a book.
“What’s this?” Staci took it, but didn’t open it like he had expected her to.
“A book,” he said with a bit of a grin of his own.
“I can see that.” She lightly slapped his arm with the book. “What kind of book?”
“Poetry, actually.”
With that, she folded it within her arms against her breast. She looked at him for a moment, head tilted again, hazel eyes gleaming above her solemn mouth.
“Yes.”
Johann looked at her, startled for a moment. “Yes?”
“Yes, I’d like to spend tomorrow evening with you at Walcha’s Coffee House.” Her smile this time was somehow soft, with a sweet light that almost seemed to enfold her like a halo.
“Umm…” Johann was beginning to hate that sound, and it had come out of his mouth a lot tonight. For someone with his self-confidence, that was more than a bit unsettling. “Thank you.”
He felt a smile grow on his face to match hers, and they stood there for a moment sharing the moment.
“Staci?” Casey appeared in the doorway. “Oh…I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were here, Johann.”
The moment was broken, and Johann gathered himself. “It is of no moment, Fräulein Casey. I must leave now anyway.” He turned to Staci. “Tomorrow evening, then? About this time?”
Staci looked at her watch. “A bit later, perhaps. How about six o’clock?”
Johann bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment. “I will arrive then.”
Staci held a hand out, and Johann took it in his not to shake, but simply to hold and press for a moment. Then he nodded to Casey and took his leave.
* * *
“What was that all about?” Casey asked.
Staci continued to gaze at where Johann had left her field of view. “I have a date tomorrow night.”
“A date? What do you mean, a date?”
“I have been invited to an evening of conversation with Johann Bach at Walcha’s Coffee House tomorrow evening at six o’clock.”
“Pfffpt!” Casey uttered, followed immediately by, “Ow!” as Staci slapped her arm much harder with her new book than she had slapped Johann.
“Seriously?” Casey said, rubbing her arm.
“Seriously.”
“I dunno about that guy,” Casey muttered. “Conversation. Geez.”
“Actually, I think I’m going to like it,” Staci said.
Casey had the wisdom to not say anything more as she was still rubbing her arm.
Staci folded her book back to her breast and left the room, the small soft smile returning to her lips as she trod the stairs toward their room.
* * *
The next morning, after their usual stop at Frau Zenzi’s, the three Bach brothers were walking down the Kristinstrasse chewing on their morning bread.
“Oh,” Heinrich said suddenly. “I forgot to tell you last night. Master Luder wants to see you today.”
“What about?” Johann said after he swallowed the bite he’d been chewing.
“Don’t know. He didn’t say.”
“Well, did he look mad, or sad, or serious, or happy?”
Heinrich had a mouthful of bread at that point, and it took a bit for him to get it chewed up. “More serious than anything,” he finally said. “Not mad, anyway.”
“Something about the pipes?”
Heinrich shook his head. “No, when he was working on the pipes was the only time that he didn’t look serious.”
“Hmm,” Johann muttered. “Wonder what he has on his mind. Tell him I will come by before noon.”
Heinrich nodded.
And it was a moment before noon when Johann stepped through the doorway into Master Luder’s forge. The master was bent over something with his journeyman. The young man looked up, saw Johann standing by the doorway, and murmured something to his master. Master Luder looked up in turn, saw Johann and held up a finger. Johann nodded that he would wait a moment, and the master returned to his conversation with the journeyman. Before long, they both straightened; the master clapped his journeyman on the shoulder, then turned and stepped toward Johann.
“Master Bach.”
“Master Luder.”
The whitesmith was not smiling. Johann grew concerned at the seriousness of his expression. Master Luder slapped his heavy gloves on a shelf, took his jacket from the nearby peg, and said, “Come. We need to talk, and it needs beer.”
Johann smiled to himself as he followed the whitesmith out of the forge. For Master Luder, most conversations seemed to need beer.
It wasn’t long before they were seated at a table in a corner of the Green Horse and Master Luder was taking a long pull at his large flagon of beer.
“Working in the heat of the forge gives you a thirst,” Luder said.
�
�I can see that,” Johann replied after taking a smaller sip of his own flagon. “Heinrich said you wanted to see me? I hope he hasn’t been any trouble.”
“No,” Luder said, waving a hand in the air. “He is actually proving to be of at least a little bit of help, which is useful, since my apprentice broke his leg a few weeks ago and isn’t up to doing the work yet.” The whitesmith looked down to where his large blunt-fingered hands were wrapped around his flagon on the table, then looked back up again to face Johann squarely. “We have a problem…or rather, you have a problem that will affect the work I am doing for you.”
Johann leaned back on his stool. “And that is?”
“You remember how I told you that it looked like they were going to bring in Ludwig Compenius to rebuild the organ in the Dom, the one that Pappenheim gutted?”
Johann nodded.
“Well, they struck a deal, and it will happen. Compenius is in Magdeburg this week, examining the Dom and assessing the damage. He will probably go back to Erfurt while he thinks things over and determines what his plans will be, but it will not be long before he returns to begin the work.” Luder picked his flagon up and took another pull of its contents.
Johann considered that. “So we are going to be competing for the same resources, most likely?”
Luder gave a firm nod. “I expect the prices for the partially refined tin ore from the Ore Mountains to rise. We have not been buying enough yet to cause the demand to rise greatly and prices to jump. But if he starts buying as well, especially in large quantities, that could change. But it is not just the tin ore. He is also trying to line up the local smiths to work on his project.”
“He approached you already?”
“He did indeed, yesterday afternoon. I told him I had already given my word to work for you. I don’t think he was happy about it, but he was polite in his leave-taking.”
“But the other smiths that you were going to use to make the sheets—they are not bound to us, are they?”
Luder shook his head. “I had talked to them, but without binding them with money or a project, they can accept his work. And if he demands they work for him exclusively, as long as he pays for that, they will do so.”
1636- the Flight of the Nightingale Page 23