1636: The Devil's Opera Read online

  “And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord: and the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. And he gathered unto him the children of Ammon and Amalek, and went and smote Israel, and possessed the city of palm trees. So the children of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years. But when the children of Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised them up a deliverer, Ehud the son of Gera, a Benjamite, a man lefthanded: and by him the children of Israel sent a present unto Eglon the king of Moab.”

  Simon listened as she read the tale; how Ehud bound a dagger to his right leg under his clothes, fooled the king into dismissing his guards by saying he had a secret message for him, and when they were alone stabbed him with such force that the handle of the dagger was hidden by the king’s fat. The end of the story was eighty years of peace for Israel.

  There was a moment of silence after Ursula finished reading. She closed the Bible and put it back on the table, then resumed her embroidery. “Of course, I always thought it was a little unfair for Ehud to trick the king like that. But then, I guess the king was not a nice man, so maybe it was all right.” She giggled. “He must have been very fat, though.”

  Simon laughed with her, all the while marveling at the thought of a left-handed hero. A Bible hero, at that. His heart seemed to beat stronger at the thought of somehow following in Ehud’s footsteps. He didn’t know how he would do it, but somehow, someday people would tell stories about him like that.

  The outside door opened as they were laughing. Hans stepped through with a small keg on his shoulder. He grinned at their mirth. He placed the keg in its corner and made it ready, then straightened and dusted his hands together.

  “Hah! All done.” He looked to Simon. “Well, boy, time for us to be about our work. Come on.”

  Simon stood and crossed to the door, where he turned back for a moment. “Goodbye, Fraulein Ursula. I’ll see you another time.”

  “Goodbye, Simon. I’d like that.”

  Hans crossed to his sister and bent to kiss her cheek. “There’s still water left from yesterday. I think you have everything you need. I’ll be back late tonight.”

  “Another fight?”

  “We need the money.” Hans straightened.

  She caught his hand. “Be careful, then. You know I don’t like you fighting. You might get hurt.”

  “Don’t worry. Careful doesn’t win fights. I’ll be the best.”

  Simon waited for Hans to move through the door, then he followed him with a wave to Ursula. At the bottom of the steps, Hans turned to him.

  “I’m off to work.”

  “Where do you work?” Simon asked.

  “At the Schardius grain factorage warehouse, down by the river.”

  “Can I come? Would they have work for me?”

  “Probably not.” Simon’s face fell and Hans added, “But I will ask. Where will you be around sundown?”

  “At Frau Zenzi’s.”

  “The bakery?” Hans asked. Simon nodded. “Good. I’ll meet you there. Here.” Hans pressed a pfennig on Simon. “Get something to eat today. I’ll see you later.”

  With a wave of his own, Hans was off down the street, whistling tunelessly as he dodged around a woman with a basket on her arm and then sidestepped a pile of dung. Simon watched him go, feeling a bit left out. He comforted himself with the thought that Hans had promised to meet him in the evening.

  Simon squared his shoulders, and set out to face the day.

  Chapter 10

  Gotthilf looked up at his taller partner, and sighed. “Hey, Byron?”

  “Mmm?”

  “What are you looking for?”

  It was one of the little things about partnering with the lanky up-timer that occasionally irritated Gotthilf. It was bad enough that the man was two hands taller than he was, but he would often start looking over Gotthilf from that rarefied height. And trying to figure out what Byron was looking at when they were in a crowd was a pure waste of time for the shorter German.

  “Not a what,” Byron responded.

  That was another thing that sometimes ruffled Gotthilf’s feathers. When the mood struck him, which was often, Byron became the very personification of terseness of speech, so much so that his name could become a synonym for laconic. Having meaningful conversations with him in those moments gave new meaning to the word exercise.

  Gotthilf sighed again. “All right, who?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Byron!”

  That jarred his partner, who looked down at him. “What?”

  “Not what, who. Who are you looking for?”

  “Oh.” Byron grinned. “I’m trying to find old Demetrious.”

  “Ah.” That explained it. They had spent most of the afternoon running down the stable of observers, informants and snitches they had developed and groomed over the last year, hoping that one of them had heard something they could use to put a crack in the silence surrounding the Delt case. So far, nothing.

  Old Demetrious, though, if they could find him, just might have something for them. As Byron craned his neck and looked around the crowd in the market space, Gotthilf stood still and listened. Bit by bit he filtered out the sounds around him, until…

  He grabbed Byron by the arm. “This way.”

  Most of the crowd made way for them. As much as the two men might not like it, they were developing a reputation in the city. Several high profile murder cases, most recently including the murders of several prostitutes, had made them…“notorious” was the best word, Gotthilf decided. That made moments like this easier, but also made keeping a low profile more difficult than it used to be.

  Gotthilf elbowed his way through a throng of folks standing in a circle near a butcher’s shop. In the center of the circle was Demetrious and his table, with another man facing him on the other side.

  “Give the man back his pfennig, Demetrious,” Byron growled. Gotthilf flashed his badge, and the circle began to break up and drift away. The mark grabbed his coin off the table and bolted.

  Demetrious was almost as lanky as Byron. It was hard to tell how tall he was, because his shoulders were bowed. His face was leathered and creased with many wrinkles, some of them so deep Gotthilf thought they looked like knife cuts. White hair floated around his face in the chill breeze. His clothes were worn, but neat, and except for his fingerless gloves he might have been any old farmer come to town.

  “Ah, Lieutenant,” the old man sighed. “You surely have something better to do than come harass an honest citizen who is simply playing a game of chance.”

  Gotthilf gave an admiring glance at Demetrious’ table. It was ingenious in its design, and well made in its craft. It was perhaps a cubit square, and a palm in depth, with legs that supported it well but could be folded up and away to make an easily carried parcel.

  Atop the table were three wooden cups, upside down—Demetrious’ “game of chance.” Gotthilf had seen it before, and remained intrigued by it, although Byron insisted that the way Demetrious played, there was precious little chance in it.

  “Citizen!” Byron snorted. “You’re not a citizen until you start paying taxes.”

  Demetrious nodded at the touch. “Resident, then.”

  “Honest resident? Hah.” Byron was playing to the few stragglers of the crowd. Gotthilf knew how his partner worked, and from the slight smile that tugged at the corner of Demetrious’ mouth he was certain that the old man knew it as well.

  “Show me your cups, then.”

  The two detectives bent their heads over the table as the old man tipped the cups up one by one. “Got anything for us about the Delt murder?” Byron whispered.

  “Nay.” Demetrious set the first cup down and picked up the second. “Only a breath here and there that someone very important has been dealing harshly with those who displease him.”

  “Any idea who?” Gotthilf murmured. The second cup was placed and the third lifted.r />
  “Nay.” The third cup was set down. “But you might look for a man named Hans Metzger.”

  “All right,” Byron said loudly as he straightened. “Your cups are honest. But there’d better be a pea under one of those cups the next time we stop by.”

  Demetrious gave a slight bow. “As you command, Lieutenant.”

  Gotthilf waved a two-fingered salute as they turned away. Out of the corner of his eye he could see people drifting back to the table once it was clear the detectives were leaving.

  Byron muttered something. Gotthilf poked him in the arm. “If you’re going to make noise, say something intelligible.”

  “I was really hoping that old gypsy would have something more solid for us.”

  “Not in our cards or stars today,” Gotthilf replied as they moved through the crowd.

  “Yeah. No joke. Don’t think I’ve heard of the Metzger guy.” Byron pushed his hands into his jacket pockets. “Still, I suppose we’ll have to follow up on the name, since it’s the only lead we’ve got right now.”

  “True. And we will be able to tell Captain Reilly that we’re pursuing our investigations.”

  “True.”

  Byron fell silent, and Gotthilf followed suit. Byron hadn’t recalled the name Metzger, but it rang a bit of a bell with Gotthilf, and he worried after that thought for the better part of a block. Then it came to him.

  “Metzger…I think he was the guy who got pulled in on that splashy drunk and disorderly arrest a few weeks ago.”

  “Oh, yeah…” Byron nodded. “Yeah, I remember him now. Big blocky guy, right? Looked like a warehouseman?”

  “That’s because he is a warehouseman.”

  “Who does he work for?”

  “Mmm,” Gotthilf thought for a moment. “One of the corn factors; Bünemann or Schardius, I think.”

  Those two names were familiar to both men, as they had investigated the murder of Paulus Bünemann earlier in the year. Schardius turned out to have no connection with the murder, but had impressed them both as being a sharp operator. Gotthilf wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the man skated close to the edge of the law in his business.

  After a few steps, Byron looked over at Gotthilf. “You don’t suppose Schardius…”

  Apparently Byron’s thoughts were running in the same channels as Gotthilf’s. He shrugged. “We’ll find out.”

  After another long silence, Gotthilf asked, “Do you really think Demetrious is a gypsy?”

  Byron chuckled. “Not full blood, no. But with that Greek name and his facial features and complexion, he’s definitely not from around here. And he might be part Romanian, or Egyptian, or Armenian. Wouldn’t surprise me if he came from Istanbul, even, although he doesn’t look Turkish to me.” He laughed again. “Not that I’m an expert on Turks, mind you.”

  Chapter 11

  Otto looked up from the document he was reading at the sound of the tap on the door frame. When he saw Jacob Lentke standing in the opening, he stood and moved around the desk.

  “Come in, Jacob, come in.” He ushered the older man to a chair. “How goes your gout today?”

  “Not badly, Otto. Not badly at all.” Jacob waved a hand at the desk. “Sit, sit, my boy. What are you poring over so intently?”

  “Oh, Father Christoff forwarded some documents from Fürst Ludwig that will be useful to me. He has granted me, or rather, the mayor of Greater Magdeburg, police authority over the properties of the Stift within the confines of the city.”

  Jacob’s eyebrows rose. “The new city?”

  “Not just the new city, but Old Magdeburg as well.”

  The older man’s face adopted a grin that could only be described as evil. “That means you will have unquestionable authority over nearly half of the old city, which also removes it from the sphere of influence of the City Council. Hah! Can I tell them?”

  Otto made a note to himself that one of these days he needed to find out just who on the council had offended Lentke, and just what they had done. Jacob was normally not a vindictive man, but this was not the first time he had indicated displeasure with the council.

  “No, because the Fürst sent a copy of the documents to them as well.”

  Disappointment showed on Jacob’s face, but he shrugged it off.

  “Oh, well. That is still good news. But enough of that. I won’t be long, must be someplace else soon, but I needed to leave this with you.”

  Otto picked up the leather folder that Jacob pushed across the desk to him. He opened and scanned the document it contained. “Ah, you finished the opinion already.”

  “Yes. It turns out that we each of us had a surprising amount of case material in our homes. Not enough to reconstruct the archives, of course, but enough to provide some useful precedents. And the review by Master Thomas Price Riddle from Grantville was useful, as well. The man has the clearest of minds and a most incisive wit. I wish his health was stronger. We of the Schöffenstuhl would be delighted if he could come to Magdeburg and spend some days with us in discussions.”

  “Discussions. Hah. I know you and your cronies,” Otto smiled. “You would pick the poor man’s mind cleaner than a wishbone at a feast-day meal. You would leave him without two thoughts to keep each other company.”

  Jacob smiled in turn. “Perhaps.”

  Otto turned back to the document. “So your considered opinion is that the chancellor has no legal standing?”

  “For all of his prominent place in the Swedish regime, and for all that the emperor may have unofficially delegated imperial tasks and responsibilities to him from time to time, Chancellor Oxenstierna has no official position, standing, or authority in the USE, neither given by Parliament nor officially assigned by Emperor Gustav. Consequently, he has no basis to act as the viceroy for the emperor or as the regent for Princess Kristina in the USE.” Jacob shrugged again. “It is very clear; he has standing in the kingdom of Sweden, but none in the USE. There is no rule or precedent that authorizes or condones his actions here.”

  “So he is outside the law,” Otto stated.

  “Indeed.”

  * * *

  Franz took the broadsheet being passed out by the young woman from the Committees of Correspondence. She marched on down the street, pressing copies of the broadsheet into every hand that would take one, and a few that tried not to. Marla took the other side of it, and they looked at it together.

  Marla had been surprised to find after they moved to Magdeburg that political cartoons were not a twentieth-century original art form; that, in fact, political cartoons were ubiquitous in the seventeenth century. The one at the top of the broadsheet was a typical sample of the current state of the cartooning art: sketchy, somewhat awkward art combined with savage satirical writing.

  “Hmmph!” Marla snorted. “I need to have Aunt Susan send this guy some of my brother’s comic books. Let him learn how to draw real cartoons.”

  “I don’t know,” said Franz. “I think he did well with the horns on the chancellor.”

  Chancellor Oxenstierna had been drawn as a Minotaur figure with sweeping horns; an obvious reference to the inevitable puns on his name that seemed to universally come to mind to both up-timers and down-timers alike. The Ox or Der Ochse, either way it referred to a bovine, and this particular figure was dressed in a fancy doublet.

  All the figures in the cartoon were labeled. Franz wasn’t sure if it was the artist or the editor that wanted to make sure that nothing was misunderstood, but it still brought a smile to his face.

  “Hmm, that’s the emperor lying on the bed,” Marla puzzled out. “But who are all these people kneeling? Holy cow, this guy’s lettering is atrocious.”

  “This one is ‘Free Electorate,’” Franz said, pointing to the label. “That one is ‘Freedom of Religion,’ and the other one is ‘Freedom of Speech.’”

  “Who’s the girl in the corner by the bed?”

  Franz tilted the page, trying to get a better angle on the somewhat muddled drawing.
“I think that is supposed to be Princess Kristina.”

  “So what is it that he’s got in his hands that he’s aiming at the freedoms?”

  “Well, judging from the caption, I think it is a giant scalpel.” The caption read “Perhaps A Little Blood-letting Will Help The Emperor Regain His Senses.”

  Marla looked at him. “Scalpel?”

  “You know they used to bleed patients?”

  “Ick!” Marla thrust the broadsheet into his hands and started down the street. “I don’t get it.”

  They spent the next few minutes arguing about whether the drawing made any sense or not, walking along dodging other pedestrians, crossing streets, sidestepping wagons, carts, and the inevitable animal by-products. Wagon drivers were supposed to clean up after their horses, mules or oxen. Whether they did or not often depended on how visible a Committee of Correspondence member was.

  Their badinage ended as they stopped before a familiar door. The sign above the door read Zopff and Sons, and through the small panes of glass set in the door they could see the printing presses the firm operated. Franz opened the door, and they stepped in, to be greeted by their friend Patroclus.

  “Franz! Marla!” He advanced with open hands, albeit somewhat ink stained.

  “Don’t touch me,” Marla warned. “Last time you got that ink on me, it took me two days to get it off.”

  Patroclus laughed. “All right, I will keep my hands to myself, then. But what brings you to see us? We do not have a commission from you at the moment, do we?”

  “Nope,” Marla said. “Although I think the Grantville Music Trust will have the next batch of music to be printed ready before long.”

  The younger of the two Zopff sons, Telemachus, came up behind his brother just as she said that. He made a face. “Music. All the fiddly little bits with the notes and stems and flags going just so. I would rather set ten pages of words, even in Roman type, than a single page of music.”

  Patroclus landed a backhand on his brother’s biceps. “That music has kept us in sausage and ale the last couple of years, and you should be thankful for it.”