1636: The Devil's Opera Read online

  1636: The Devil’s Opera - eARC

  Eric Flint and David Carrico

  Advance Reader Copy

  Unproofed

  BAEN BOOKS by ERIC FLINT

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  1635: The Dreeson Incident with Virginia DeMarce

  1635: The Tangled Web by Virginia DeMarce

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  1635: The Papal Stakes with Charles E. Gannon

  1636: The Saxon Uprising

  1636: The Kremlin Games with Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett

  1636: The Devil’s Opera with David Carrico

  Grantville Gazette ed. by Eric Flint

  Grantville Gazette II ed. by Eric Flint

  Grantville Gazette III ed. by Eric Flint

  Grantville Gazette IV ed. by Eric Flint

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  1636: THE DEVIL’S OPERA

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright ©2013 by Eric Flint & David Carrico

  A Baen Book

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-3928-5

  Cover art by Tom Kidd

  Maps by t/k

  First Baen printing, October 2013

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: t/k

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Maps – to come

  Part One

  December 1635

  Music directly imitates the passions or states of the soul…when one listens to music that imitates a certain passion, he becomes imbued with the same passion…

  —Aristotle

  Chapter 1

  Simon came out to the river at least once a week, usually in the predawn light, and walked the bank of the Elbe looking for anything he might scavenge and use or sell. Today the sun was just barely visible over the eastern bank of the river, and the dawn light had not yet dropped down to the shadowed eddy under the willow tree. There was something large floating in the water.

  He stared down at the floating corpse. It wasn’t the first one he’d ever seen in his young life. It wasn’t even the first one he’d seen in the river. But it was the first one he’d seen that he might be able to get something from, if he could only get to it. He edged down to where the water lapped on the bank where he stood, and for a moment crouched as if he was going to reach out and draw the body ashore. That moment passed, though, for as the light brightened he saw that there was no way he could reach the corpse without wading out into the water, which he was loath to do since he couldn’t swim.

  The boy glanced around. There were no stout sticks nearby, so he had nothing at hand that he could maybe use to draw the body closer. He frowned. There might not be much in the man’s pockets, but anything would be more than he had.

  His head jerked up at the sound of other voices coming nearer. No help for it now. He’d have to hope the men coming this way would give him something.

  “Hai! This way. There’s a deader in the water by the tree.”

  A moment later two of the local fisherman came bustling up. “Och, so there is,” the older of the two said. “Third one this year. Well, in you go, Fritz.”

  “Me?” the younger man replied. “Make him do it.” He pointed at Simon, then ducked as the older man made to cuff his ear.

  “And a right fool I’d be to send a lad with only one working arm out into even still water.”

  The young man whined, “Why is it always me that has to go in the water after the deaders?”

  “For I am your father, and I say so,” the older man replied. “Now get in there afore I knock you in.”

  The younger man muttered, but he kicked off his shoes and stepped into the water, hissing as the chill moved up his legs. The boy shivered in sympathy as he watched, glad it wasn’t him getting wet in the winter breeze. Three strides had the corpse within reach, and Fritz drew it to the bank by one arm.

  “Fresh one, this,” the older man grunted as he rifled the dead man’s pockets with practiced hands. “Ah, here’s something.” He lifted up something and showed his son. “One of them new clasp knives like Old Barnabas bought.” The boy watched with envy as the blade was folded out and then back again. It disappeared into the older man’s coat. “Help me turn him over, Fritz.”

  They flipped the corpse onto its back. The dawn light fell on the face of the corpse, and men and boy stepped back at the sight of the bruises and cuts. “Scheisse,” the old fisherman said. “This one’s no drowning.” He shook himself and returning to rifling the clothing, feeling for pockets. “No money, not even a Halle pfennig. His coat’s worn worse than yours. His shoes…aye, they might do. Off with them now, and run them to your ma and tell her to set them near the fire to dry.”

  Simon almost laughed to see the younger man struggling with the corpse to get the shoes off. “Ach, you worthless toad,” the older man shoved the young one out of the way and had the shoes off in a moment. “Now get with you, and I’d best not beat you back to the boat.”

  He turned back to the boy. “Now, you, lad.” He looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Seen you about before, I have. Simon, isn’t it? Go find a watchman, one of these newfangled Polizei, and tell him that Johann the fisher has found a deader in the river. Say nothing to him about the knife and shoes, and tonight there will be a bowl of fish soup for you, and maybe a bit of bread to go with it. Fair enough?”

  Simon didn’t think it was fair, but he gave a nod anyway, knowing that it was the best he would get. The older man returned the nod, and Simon turned to scramble back
up the bank to find a city watchman.

  Chapter 2

  Otto Gericke looked out the small diamond-shaped panes in his office window at the sprawl of the exurb of Magdeburg, what some had taken to calling Greater Magdeburg. When Gustavus Adolphus had chosen Magdeburg to become the capitol of his new continental realm, what had been a city of perhaps half a square mile within its fortified walls had quickly mushroomed into a metropolis that, if it wasn’t in the same league as Paris or London as far as size, bid fair to grow into that league in the not-too-distant-future. And as the up-timers put it, it was Otto’s baby…or his headache, depending on which up-timer you talked to. He was mayor of Greater Magdeburg, appointed so by Gustavus Adolphus, who had then scurried off to war without giving him much more instruction than “Clean up this mess, and build me a capitol to be proud of.” Certainly there was no provision for a city council for Greater Magdeburg to share the work, or for an election of a replacement. Which meant that everything of any consequence, and most items of little consequence, ended up on Otto’s desk. He had started mentally labeling days as “baby” or “headache,” and when he had shared that thought with up-timers like Jere Haygood, all they had done was laugh.

  Looking at his clock, Otto decided that he’d best get back to work. He had just settled back into his chair when the door to his office opened and an elderly man was ushered in by his secretary.

  “Thank you, Albrecht,” Otto said. “See to it that we are not disturbed, if you would.” The secretary nodded and closed the door as he stepped out.

  Otto stepped around his desk and embraced the man in turn. “Jacob, it is good to see you.” He smiled. “Even if you did catch me somewhat deshabille.” He indicated his jacket on the coat tree and his rolled-up shirt sleeves.

  Jacob Lentke, a family friend of both Otto’s late father and his late father-in-law, stumped over to a chair obviously prepared for him, sat down and lifted his foot onto the waiting stool. He leaned back with a sigh, holding his cane with loose fingers.

  “I see the gout still troubles you,” Otto commented as he walked to a sideboard and busied himself with a wine decanter. “Have you not read what the Grantville doctors are saying about gout?”

  “I have, and what is worse, my wife has. And I am, with reluctance, willing to moderate my eating, but I will not give up my daily regimen of wine. After all, it was Saint Paul who said, ‘Take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake,’ and who am I to disregard the instruction of an apostle and saint?”

  Otto returned to offer a glass of wine to the older man. “With all due respect, Jacob, I somehow doubt that the good saint had in mind the quantities of wine that you drink.”

  Lentke chuckled, then took a sip of the wine. His eyebrows climbed his forehead, and he looked at the glass with respect. “Where did you get Hungarian wine around here?”

  The destruction of the war so far had caused devastation in much of the farmlands of the central Germanies. The wineries in particular had been hit hard. Not much had been produced for several years, and the quality of what had been bottled was noticeably lacking.

  “Wallenstein, actually,” Otto responded, settling into his chair behind the desk. He grinned at the frown that crossed his Lentke’s face. “He felt he owed Michael Stearns somewhat, so as a favor he shipped a small portion of the Bohemian royal wine cellars to Michael. Rebecca Abrabanel was kind enough to provide a small share of that to me. A small share of a small portion, to be sure, but I understand that the Bohemian wine cellars were, umm, significant, so there were more than a few bottles.” He chuckled as he swirled the wine in his own glass.

  “Indeed,” Lentke said, lifting his glass again. “Small recompense for the damage Wallenstein’s dog Pappenheim did to Magdeburg, but I suppose we should be thankful for small blessings, no matter the source.”

  Otto thought that was a remarkably temperate statement from one who had been in Magdeburg before the sack and resulting destruction done by Pappenheim’s troops several years before when he served under Tilly. Most survivors’ comments concerning the erstwhile Austrian army field commander began with the scatological and descended quickly to the infernal and blasphemous. The fact that Pappenheim was now firmly ensconced in Wallenstein’s court, and Wallenstein was now at least nominally allied with the USE and Gustavus Adolphus, had little effect on the depth of rancor that the survivors of the sack of Magdeburg had for him.

  “Enough of unpleasant topics,” Lentke declared. “Why did you ask to meet with me, Otto?”

  “Jacob, you are still a member of the Schöffenstuhl, correct?”

  Gericke was referring to the senior jurisprudence body for the Magdeburger Recht association, the group of cities in central Europe which had been granted laws and rights by their sovereigns that were drawn from the laws and charter of Magdeburg itself. It had been located in Magdeburg, and until the sack had functioned as what the Grantvillers would have called an appellate court for cases that their own courts could not address or whose decisions needed ratification.

  “Yah, you know that I am, but that means nothing now, Otto.” Lentke shook his head. “All of our files, all of our books, all of our documents were destroyed in the sack, except for a handful that I managed to snatch up in the face of the flames. Centuries of work, centuries of civilization, centuries of wisdom, now nothing but ash at Pappenheim’s hand.” From his expression, he would convert the soldier to a like condition if it were in his power. His mouth worked as if he desired to spit, but he refrained.

  “But you and some of your fellow jurists still live.” Otto leaned forward, his expression very intense. “Your names still carry weight. People still respect your wisdom, especially people in this part of the USE. Maybe not so much over in the west or by the Rhineland, but definitely in Saxony, Brandenburg, Thuringia-Franconia, and even into Bohemia, Poland, and the Ukraine.”

  “And if that is so?” Lentke shook his head again. “It is a dying reputation, Otto. What use is it to talk of it?”

  “Ah, Jacob. Perhaps the wine has affected more than your foot,” Otto said with a small smile. “Your position and authority as jurists has never been recalled or revoked. And Magdeburg the city needs you. I need you.”

  “Say on,” Lentke replied.

  “You want work to do. I can give you that work.”

  Otto watched Lentke rock back in his chair with a bit of a stunned look. He rallied quickly, however. “Oh, come now, Otto. We are in no position of authority.”

  “You may not now be, perhaps,” Otto conceded, “but you do occupy a position of undoubted moral authority. And I can give you proper legal standing.”

  “How will you accomplish that?” Lentke looked at Otto in some surprise.

  “Magdeburg is an imperial city in the USE, you know that. We are independent of the province of Magdeburg, yes?” Otto spoke incisively. “That means we should have an independent magistracy and judiciary as well. I’ve been making do, but we need the Schöffenstuhl to resume, to serve as the senior judiciary for the city, including as what the up-timers call an appellate court. Some of the matters that are coming before me and the other magistrates,” he shook his own head, “should be coming to you. So take on this work as the reconvened Schöffenstuhl, and I will then empanel you as part of the city governance. You will have good work to do, and it will take a fair amount of work off my shoulders.”

  “And paper out of your office, no doubt,” Lentke retorted, looking at the files stacked on various tables and cabinets.

  “A side benefit.” Otto waved a hand airily.

  “And you have this authority?”

  Lentke was sounding interested, Otto thought to himself. That was a good sign. He chuckled, then held up a hand as Jacob frowned at him.

  “I think you will find, Jacob, that within the boundaries of Magdeburg, Imperial Province and Free City of the United States of Europe, my authority is limited only by the will of the emperor himself. He never got around to giving the new city a charter or
giving me much of a job description before his injury, and until he or his heir or Parliament does…” Otto shrugged.

  Before Lentke could respond to that thought, there came an interruption. Albrecht opened the door from the outer office and stuck his head in.

  “Excuse me, Herr Gericke, but your stepfather is here and wishes to see you.”

  “By all means, let him in, Albrecht.” Otto stood hurriedly and moved out from behind his desk just in time to embrace the man who almost charged past the secretary. “Papa Christoff, it is good to see you!”

  “And you as well, son.”

  Christoff Schultze was a lean man who was active beyond his years, as the thump he gave to Otto’s shoulder bore witness. He had married Otto’s mother after the death of her second husband, and had never treated Otto with anything other than care and consideration. Love may not have come into play between them, but certainly affection had, and it showed in their greetings.

  “Please, be seated.”

  Otto gestured to the other chair in front of his desk, and returned to the sideboard to quickly pour another glass of wine for his stepfather.

  “Aah,” Schultze sighed after taking his first sip. “I do like a glass of good wine. I only wish I had time to properly savor this one.”

  “Then I take it you are here on some official matter?” Otto asked.

  “Indeed,” Schultze replied. “Ludwig sent me.”

  That would be Fürst Ludwig von Anhalt-Cöthen, Otto thought to himself, Gustav Adolph’s appointed administrator for the archbishopric’s properties, owned by the Erzstift of Magdeburg, which in turn was now owned by Gustavus Adolphus.

  “And how is Fürst Ludwig these days?” Otto asked, wondering just what errand could have forced the good Fürst to send his chief lieutenant.