Ring of Fire II Read online

"And when did Marla start having trouble?" Mary asked.

  "Yesterday," Franz answered. "She is, as you are no doubt aware, somewhat strong-willed." He chuckled. "And as I said, would not stay in the shelter. She kept going out on the prow in the rain, so she was cold and wet all the time. By this morning she was as you saw her when we arrived."

  "I should have known you'd be talking about me," another voice said, and Franz's head whipped around to see Marla standing in the doorway at the back of the room, dressed in a thick robe and with a large shawl wrapped around her.

  In the next moment, he was at her side and guiding her to a chair near the stove. "You should be resting," he scolded, worry in his eyes.

  "I'm fine, Franz," she said, a little of her normal fire returning to her face and voice. "Once I got dry and started to get warm, I began to feel better."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Franz . . ." with a warning tone.

  Marla's face was still somewhat drawn, but the color was returning, and she was smiling. A knot of worry in Franz's mind released, and he sighed in response. "All right, if you insist. But you are not going outside again today, maybe not tomorrow."

  "I promise," she said. "But . . ."

  "But what?"

  "I want to know about the Steinway."

  "Marla . . ." with exasperation.

  "Franz . . ." sweetly.

  He gazed into her eyes, and sighed. "All right, if I go and bring word to you, will you stay here?"

  "Yes."

  "Promise?"

  She raised a hand to his face. "I promise." He captured her hand and brought it around to kiss the fingertips.

  "Then I will go forth and return with word of your precious Steinway." Franz straightened, then looked down at her with a grin. "You know, if that piano was a man, I would be very jealous."

  "You!" She slapped his leg. "Get, and find out what's happening with my piano!"

  "As you command," he intoned. Hilde appeared with his coat, which, if not totally dry, was at least dryer than it had been, and considerably warmer to boot.

  "By your leave, Frau Simpson," he said with a slight bow.

  "Go, Franz." She laughed. "She won't rest until you do."

  He stepped to the door, raised a hand in farewell, and was gone.

  Franz closed the door behind him and turned to face the street. Immediately he noticed that the rain had almost stopped. Casting a quizzical eye to the sky, he muttered, "You could have answered my prayer to stop the rain a little earlier than this, and spared Marla." He looked back at the street, and started down the steps. "I know, I know, 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the Name of the Lord.' "

  When he reached the bottom, he turned and began walking toward the docks. At the end of the row of houses, he stopped a merchant's apprentice hurrying by and asked for directions to the Weaver's Guildhall. Slipping and sliding through the mud, he dodged wagons, horses and other people and finally arrived at the guildhall without injury. The wagon that had been hired to carry the piano from the docks to the hall was still waiting in front of it.

  Like the rest of Magdeburg, the building had been built anew after the fires from Tilly's sack had destroyed the original hall. It was a rather large structure that had much of the raw look of the newer construction, but he could see where some friezes and a few small statues had been added to the original plain exterior. The weavers were a wealthy guild, and no doubt would continue to ornament their hall until it reflected what they felt to be their position in Magdeburg's society.

  Franz walked up the main steps to the portico, paused at the top to scrape his boots on the tool provided for that purpose, then faced a pair of large but plain doors. No doubt the guild would have them replaced with ornately carved panels at their earliest convenience. He passed through them and entered a foyer of sorts: a couple of offices on each side, then a cross hallway, and on the other side a large pair of doors flanked by stairways. The guild had already spent some money here, for these doors had glass panes in them.

  One of the office doors was open, so Franz stuck his head in the doorway. He spied a clerk hard at work at a ledger book. "Where is the ballroom?"

  The clerk didn't even look up, just jabbed with the quill in his hand toward his left. "Through the glass doors." Dipping his quill in his ink, he continued his hasty scribbling.

  The first thing Franz noticed as he opened the doors was Friedrich Braun's voice. "No, you idiot! Do not start lifting until I tell you to!"

  Franz entered the room at the far end from where Friedrich was rolling out from under the piano to glare at someone Franz didn't know. Several of the men standing around the piano looked around as he approached. He saw Hermann Katzberg, Isaac Fremdling and Josef and Rupert Tuchman standing together, watching as Friedrich worked at uncrating the piano. Several Magdeburg locals, obviously drafted to provide muscle power, were grouped together on the other side of the piano. It was one of them that Friedrich was glaring at. The man started to bristle, but something caught his attention, and he paled and backed away to mingle with his companions. Franz followed his eyes, to see Gunther Achterhof leaning against the side wall and directing a very piercing gaze at the offender.

  Franz's footsteps sounded in the suddenly quiet room, and Friedrich turned to spy him. "Franz! How is Marla?" All of his friends looked at him with concern written on their faces, expressions which lightened as they saw the smile on his own face.

  "She is feeling better," he responded as he joined their rank. "Getting her inside where she could be warm and dry has made much difference. In a day or two, we will have her amongst us again, belaboring us with directions and criticisms, and assuring us that we will grow used to the dissonance."

  They all laughed in relief as Franz squatted to bring himself down to Friedrich's level. "So what happens here, oh greatest of all journeymen?"

  "Have a care how you speak to one who holds tools in his hands," Friedrich retorted, "lest you find them applied to your skull instead of this crate." He rolled back under the piano. "As you can see, the bottom of the shipping crate is resting on trestles. Master Ingram, who is indeed worthy of that accolade, designed the crate in such a manner that while it rests on the trestles, we can remove part of the bottom and reattach the legs and pedals to the piano. Thus we do not have to tilt it onto its side, nor have many men attempt to hold it in the air whilst I scurry around like a beetle underneath it, striving to attach the legs before it is dropped upon me. That is, if a certain lackwit can be restrained from attempting to lift one side of it until I am finished!" Friedrich's voice at that moment dripped acid. The man he referred to shuffled his feet and moved to the rear of the group of locals.

  "So the liberating of the Steinway from its crate proceeds well, then?" Franz asked lightly.

  "Aye, well indeed, thanks to the artifice of those unknown craftsmen who made the Steinway. 'Tis a miracle of design, Franz. So spare in features, so well crafted, so few tools needed to disassemble and reassemble it. There is an elegance in their work that I despair of ever attaining. And in its own way, Master Ingram's design of the crate is almost as elegant, allowing the piano to be enveloped by the crate's assembly around it, rather than forcing the instrument to be jostled around and eventually placed inside the crate. Much less risk of damage in his way. There!" he exclaimed, rolling out from under the piano again.

  Climbing to his feet, Friedrich said, "All right, you lot, space yourselves around the piano, but leave the curved side open for the moment." He waited for the locals and Isaac, Johann and Rupert to take their places. "Do not grasp the packing crate, but the bottom of the instrument itself. Take a good grasp, so that the blanket wrapping it does not slip in your hands. And do not lift until I say the word!" with an indiscriminate glare for everyone involved. "Franz, Hermann, when we lift, gently pull the trestles and the remaining portion of the crate from under the piano. I remind you all, if anyone mars the beauty of this creation, he will answer to Mistress Marla, and I would
not be in his shoes for all the silver in Amsterdam." Franz took his coat off and tossed it to the floor some distance away.

  Friedrich took his place at the keyboard end between two of the locals, took his grip and looked around at them all. "Lift!" The piano elevated, and Hermann dove under it to support the bottom of the case and guide it as Franz carefully pulled the first trestle from under the small end of the piano. After what seemed like an eternity, but was probably no more than a very few of the up-timers' minutes, it was accomplished.

  Hermann came out from under the instrument with a sour look on his face. Guessing that the expression came from his being apparently relegated to the easy work because of his short stature, Franz caught his eye and held up his damaged left hand, not saying a word. It took a moment for Hermann to catch his meaning, but catch it he did, and he acknowledged it with a nod and a wry twist of his mouth. As much as they might wish otherwise, Franz thought, they both had to acknowledge their limitations.

  Friedrich handed a purse to Isaac, asking him to pay the locals, then rolled back under the piano. Franz heard Friedrich muttering, so he squatted again. "Now what occurs, oh wonder in the firmaments of craftsmanship?"

  "What occurs is that a certain flap-tongued sawyer of strings is treading the steps of a dangerous dance, and may well find himself dancing with the devil if he continues." Friedrich muttered again, and this time Franz caught a mention of matter that was typically shoveled out of stable stalls.

  Given that his friend normally took seriously the scriptural instruction to avoid vulgarity, Franz therefore knew that he was indeed frustrated about something underneath the Steinway. "Is there aught I can do?" he asked in a sober tone.

  "Nay. The blanket that enwraps the piano is laced together underneath," Friedrich's voice sounded strained. "The knots will not release their hold."

  "And who tied these knots?"

  Silence, for a moment, then a surly, "I did."

  Franz looked up at his other friends, to see grins that matched his own.

  "Aha!" came from under the piano, and they could hear the sound of cords being drawn through holes, evidence that the knots had finally given way. In a few moments, Friedrich rolled out from underneath with two fists full of cords. The blanket edges now hung down straight from the sides of the piano. Friedrich pulled the blanket off, then opened the lid and took out the blanket that had been padding the props and the edge of the opening. Propping the lid open, he then unlocked the keyboard cover and removed the padding that had been inserted underneath it. "Hermann," he said, pulling over the bench that had been set to one side, "you are the best of us at this in Marla's absence. Play, so that we can hear if it has suffered some hidden injury."

  Hermann sat down and began to play something contrapuntal, something Franz knew he had heard before. After a moment, he recognized it as one of the Three-Part Inventions by J. S. Bach, one of the pieces that Marla had used early in their discussions about the future of music to demonstrate the final glories of the contrapuntal style of composition. Hermann played it well. After he brought the work to its conclusion, he looked at Friedrich, then at Franz, saying, "To my ear, it rings true."

  "To me as well." Friedrich nodded. "Marla will probably want to tune it, but I think it has survived its travels without injury."

  "Good," Franz replied, picking up his coat and shrugging it on. "That is the word that Marla sent me to obtain. Now I can take that to her, and she will at last be at her ease." His fingers busy with buttons, he asked, "Where are we sleeping tonight? Have you found word of an inn where we can stay until we can find rooms?"

  Before anyone could respond, Gunther Achterhof pushed off from the wall where he had been leaning, forgotten all this time. The friends turned to face him, and Franz forced himself to not step back from the man's presence. "No need for an inn," the CoC leader said. "Mistress Linder will be staying with Admiral and Frau Simpson, and rooms for all of you have been provided by Mr. Wilhelm Wettin."

  Franz knew that name, but it took him a moment to remember why he knew it. Then his eyes opened wide—the former duke of Saxe-Weimar! That was who was providing them accommodations! He glanced around, and the others were as stunned as he was. From the slight smile on Gunther's face, he found their reactions humorous.

  "Umm," Franz hemmed, "are you certain?"

  "Oh, yes," Gunther replied, still smiling that slight smile, "the former duke of Saxe-Weimar, now the commoner Wilhelm Wettin, has offered to 'put you up,' as the Americans say. I think it would be rude to refuse." They all assured him they were in agreement with him. "And besides, your bags have already been delivered there," Gunther concluded, which left them with nothing at all to say.

  "Good. Now, Herr Sylwester, let me walk with you back to Admiral Simpson's house." And with that, Franz found himself waving goodbye to his friends as Gunther urged him out the door.

  He looked over at the Committee man's face as they walked down the street, wondering what Gunther's desire to walk with him foreboded. Gunther caught him at it and smiled his slight smile again. "Do not worry, Herr Sylwester. I simply wanted a little privacy to tell you something."

  "Tell me something?" Franz almost stuttered.

  "Yes." The smile disappeared. "We will be watching over you."

  "Over us?" Franz knew he sounded stupid, but he was almost struck dumb over the notion of the Committees of Correspondence keeping watch on Marla and himself.

  "Yes. Magdeburg is not as . . . civilized . . . as Grantville. You will be protected, much as we protect the admiral and his lady."

  Moments of silence as they walked along, then, "Why?" from Franz.

  "Partly because Fraulein Linder is American, and you are hers; partly because she is here under the wing of the admiral's lady; and partly because of who she is." Gunther paced quietly for several steps. "I heard her sing once, at the Gardens. Almost I forgot who I was." More silent steps, then, "Will she sing for us here?" There was a tone in his voice, one that Franz could not recognize, but something more than the usual gruffness.

  "I cannot speak for her, but it would not surprise me," Franz responded.

  "Good."

  They stopped at an intersection of streets, where Gunther clapped Franz on his shoulder, staggering him slightly. "The admiral's street is the second corner after this one. You should make it with no problems from here. And remember, we are watching. If you need anything, just look around. You will find us." Whistling tunelessly between his teeth, he turned up the cross street. Franz stared after him.

  Marla reached up and undid her ponytail holder as the door closed behind Franz, allowing her coal black hair to settle around her shoulders and flow down her back. She leaned back in the embrace of the chair, resting her head against the upholstery.

  "So how do you really feel, Marla?" she heard Mary ask.

  Opening her eyes, she said, "I think I've felt worse than this in my life, but I can't really remember when." She raised her head with a tired smile, receiving a smile in return.

  "Probably a combination of stress and being thoroughly chilled," Mary said.

  "Is there any coffee left in that pot, Mrs. Simpson?" She leaned her head back against the chair again.

  "Call me Mary, dear. There's not much here, and it's cool. Let me have Hilde bring some more." The maid must have been within earshot. Marla never heard a summons, but in a moment she heard footsteps crossing from the door to the nearby table and back again.

  Mary cleared her throat. "So, you're here, the piano is here, and Franz is here. Tell me who else came with you."

  "Hermann Katzberg, Josef and Rudolf Tuchman, and Isaac Fremdling are the musicians. Hermann is an absolute wizard at harpsichord and organ, and does well with a Baroque flute. Josef plays viola d'amore, and his brother Rudolf plays Baroque flute and has a good baritone voice. Isaac is a really good violinist in the German style, and has a tenor voice that would have earned him rock god status if he'd been born in the twentieth century.

  "Friedri
ch Braun came with us to see to the unpacking and setting up of the piano, but he'll be returning to Grantville as soon as possible. He has responsibilities in the Bledsoe and Riebeck shop."

  Mary looked over the rim of her cup, assessing the young woman seated across from her. Her face was drawn, with dark shadows under her eyes; her shoulders slumped slightly from exhaustion. Nonetheless, her voice was strong, her tone was calm, and she seemed composed. Either she was one of those people who bounced back from injury quickly, or she was one who worked through her pain. Either way, Mary liked what she had seen of her so far.

  "And where does Franz fit into this gallery of musicians?" she asked. She had her guesses, but she wanted to hear what Marla said.

  A small, dreamy smile appeared on Marla's face for a moment, then she took another sip of coffee before responding. "Musically, Franz is a work of salvage at the moment. His left hand was crushed by a rival violinist who was jealous of his skill."