"Herr Meyfarth." He looked up from the pedestal desk at which he was preparing the Sunday sermon.
"Herr Meyfarth." The knock at his door was repeated; from the voice, it was his landlady.
"Yes, yes. I'm coming." He tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. It was one of the worst things about him, he knew. When he was working, he hated to be interrupted. Yet the nature of the work of a parish pastor was that it was full of interruptions.
"Someone is here to speak with you."
"Thank you," he said absentmindedly. "I'm coming now." He wiped his pen, but left the book open.
He did not recognize the men, but they appeared to know him. Scarcely surprising in itself; a pastor was naturally noticed when he went through the streets. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. What is it?"
"If you could come? A difficult birth."
He did not recall that any of those women who had been attending his sermons was expecting a child right now. Possibly, always possibly, someone from one of the families who had fallen away under persecution and were ashamed to come back. In any case, an innocent child in need of baptism.
"Just let me get my case." He hurried back up the stairs for the small case in which he kept his manual and small Bible, the host and wine for the mother, just in case; a little vial of water.
"Frau Thornton."
Emma looked up. The woman standing at the other side of the booth counter looked very upset.
"Please, excuse me many times. I am the landlady for Herr Pastor Meyfarth. I know that your husband is his friend. This is true, isn't it?"
"Why, yes. Willard is out of town this week, though. Can I help you?"
"Men came for the Herr Pastor, yesterday. To bring comfort to a difficult birth, they said. They did not give their names. He went with them, naturally. But he has not returned."
"Couldn't members of his church help you more than I can?"
The woman looked even more distressed. "I have already been to them. They know of no one who would have had need of him, no one expecting a child. We have checked with the two families they know of who expect God to bless them soon with the gift of a child. Both mothers are well; neither sent for the pastor. No one knows."
"Why come to me?"
"It is said that you know the Ram."
Emma smiled. So much for discretion. Gathering up the literature she had on display, she packed it into the tightly woven basket at the rear of the booth; then picked up the basket and put it on top of the three-legged stool on which she sat when no inquirer was there. Just in case of rain; it should stay dry until she got back.
Drat, she had missed a couple. Rather than open the balky catch on the basket again, she dropped them into the big pocket on her work apron. It was a Grantville Home Center special; the pockets were big, and the motto was an attention-getter when she worked the booth.
"Come with me, please."
Constantin Ableidinger sighed. He had had men from the ram watching them for so long. There had been, as far as they could tell, no attempts against them. With everything else that was going on, he needed every reliable, trained man he had at his side. He called the Jaeger back, to be in other places, to do other things.
Now, both Herr Meyfarth and Frau Thornton, gone. And a note on his desk.
Call off the ram, or they die.
As if he could call off the ram, now! What kind of fools could these men be, to think that anyone, even the Ram himself, with a word or gesture, could call back a flood? Find the men who were in Bamberg last spring. Where would they be, now? Thousands in the field. Start asking. Where were they, the Jaeger who had guarded them?
Herr Thornton. He was out of the city. Where was he? Did Ottheinrich leave a list, of the villages they were to visit? Was he safe? The itinerary was here; quickly, he sent out a runner to follow the route.
What tie could there be between Meyfarth and the Thorntons, other than the ram?
"You are sure that you saw this?" Martha Kronacher asked anxiously. "Sure?"
The ewe's little flock of apprentices, Martha's younger brothers and their friends, had been talking to people all over Bamberg for two days.
Her brother Melchior had been pushing them hard. He did not like the look that had come over Martha's face when she heard that Pastor Meyfarth was gone. She was sincerely concerned about Frau Thornton, to be sure, but with Pastor Meyfarth, she appeared to take it personally, so to speak.
"Yes, I am sure," the fishmonger said, in response to a question asked by Stew Hawker. "In the market, speaking to Frau Thornton. At the booth where she has the books and pamphlets. It was Herr Pastor Meyfarth's landlady. I am sure that I recognized her. I don't know her name, but she's a widow who keeps a small boarding house, for working men. Has for several years. Respectable, very respectable. The rooms are cheap."
"Has anyone checked there?" Ableidinger asked.
"The other boarders are coming and going," the Jaeger in the room answered. He was the biggest of the ones whom Ableidinger had brought with him into Bamberg. The scariest one, too, Martha thought. "Complaining that this morning there was no breakfast. The woman is gone."
"Is she a Lutheran that he was boarding with her?" Wade Jackson took up where Stew had left off.
Martha frowned suddenly. She did not recall having seen die alte Neideckerin at any of the pastor's sermons.
Her mother came into the room.
"Neighbors say that the family was Protestant, Constantin," the Jaeger continued. "Before, you know. Before 1628. She welcomed the Herr Pastor when he let people know that he was coming."
"Family?"
"None," the fishmonger answered. "None that anyone knows of. Not any more. There was a husband, but he died. A daughter. I don't know what became of her."
Else Kronacher spoke up. "I do." She turned to Ableidinger. "Constantin, I recommended the boarding house because Rudolph Vulpius and old Kaethe thought that Pastor Meyfarth would be safe there. As safe as anywhere. Die alte Neideckerin is a relative of Frau Anna Hansen, who was burned as a witch in 1629. Or, possibly, her husband was the relative. In any case, they came under suspicion. They sent Judith, the daughter, away, to safety."
"Where?"
"She was not a native of Bamberg, you know. The old woman. She married into the city. Vulpius took Judith to the lands of the Freiherr Fuchs von Bimbach, over by Bayreuth."
"Hell and damnation!" Wade Jackson exploded out of his chair. "We've got to call Vince. Notify Steve and Scott. Right away."
He looked for the big Jaeger. The man had already left the room.
"You're certain?" Noelle asked.
The cook nodded. "Yes. I recognized die alte Neideckerin and Pastor Meyfarth. The other woman with them, I don't know. But the blacksmith's son says she's one of the uptimer heretics. The wife of the one who was flogged in Bamberg, before the ram put a stop to it."
Her hands folded on her lap, Noelle stared at the wall in her tiny living quarters. As if, somehow, the blankness of the wall could dispel the blankness in her mind.
"What in the name of . . . What is von Bimbach doing? That's insane!"
"He's a madman," the cook said, shrugging. "He always has been, even when he was a boy. When he loses his temper, he's capable of anything. Even at the age of six, he was that way. I remember him."
She might, at that, Noelle thought. The cook had to be close to sixty years old, and she'd worked in the von Bimbach Schloss most of her adult life.
"Still . . ."
She shook off the disbelief. Lunatic act or not, Fuchs von Bimbach's kidnapping of the three people from Bamberg might finally provide the handle to topple him. The fulcrum, rather, for the lever she already had more or less in her hands. By now, well over half of the castle's staff was either working for the ram or sympathetic.
Even the soldiers didn't seem attached to their lord. And they were obviously very nervous about the situation. Everyone, by now, knew what had happened at Mitwitz. The only ones of that Freiherr's mercenaries who had survived has been the ones who ran away, and did it quickly.
She rose to her feet, abruptly, filled with determination.
"Right. Three things. First, find out exactly where they're being kept. Second, send word for Eddie Junker. Tell him to come to the Schloss immediately. And tell him to bring my Browning with him."
That required a moment to clarify the term. Brow-ning. Never mind what it is. Eddie knows.
Third—"
She eyed the cook, wondering if there'd be an argument. "I want you to pretend that he's a new servant in the kitchens. He needs to be here all the time, from now on."
There was no argument. The cook simply nodded. "No one will ask."
She left. After a minute or so, Noelle followed her into the corridor. Then, headed for Judith Neideckerin's chambers.
When she arrived, she found von Bimbach's mistress staring bleakly out of the window.
"He has had my mother imprisoned also," she said, after glancing over her shoulder to see who had entered. Still staring out the window, she added: "Tell the Ram to send me an icepick. I'll drive it into the bastard's ear tonight."
Noelle shook her head. "No. We have to let this unfold for a bit."
Angrily, Neideckerin spun around. "What if he hurts my mother?"
Noelle took a deep breath. "He won't do that right away. We have time to organize. And your plan with an icepick won't work, anyhow. He probably won't come to see you—he's not that stupid—and if he does, he'll search you for weapons first."
Still angry, Neideckerin's eyes swept her chambers. "There's somewhere I could hide it. Must be."
"He'll have soldiers search your quarters. If he comes at all. Which he most likely won't."
After a few seconds, Judith's shoulders slumped. "Please, Noelle. She's my mother."
Wishing she felt as much confidence as she was projecting in her tone of voice, Noelle said: "I'll take care of it."
"So most of it is under control," said Scott Blackwell. "Since Mitwitz burned, more than half of the imperial knights and petty lords have caved in and formally withdrawn their support for the petition. A number of them have come into Bamberg or Würzburg for the sake of the military protection we give them, even though that sort of amounts to house arrest. Well, call it `city arrest.' Most of the rest are sulking on their own lands. Under siege by the ram's men. Usually by far more of the ram's men than their own lands could possibly account for, but I've avoided examining that too closely. Only six more burn-outs, and those of lords who promised something and then reneged."
He came to the end of his notes. "The real problems that I still have, from a military standpoint, are the ones who have retreated into other lands they hold that are outside our jurisdiction. Those lands that are surrounded by Ansbach, Nürnberg, or Bayreuth. I can't chase them down there, myself, and I can't let the ram's people get rambunctious either. Too much danger of offending some of Gustavus Adolphus' important allies."
His report finished, Scott closed the notebook and looked up.
"Hearts and Minds?" Steve Salatto asked.
"Self-government in Franconia is proceeding normally," said Johnnie F. "That is, things are messy, disorganized, imperfect, and squabbly. Tithe compensation committees are disputing with water rights committees, neither of which have much in common with the weights and measures people, none of whom can seem to get a firm answer out of Magdeburg, because the parliament up there is passing things without appropriating the funds to implement them. Lord, how I hate unfunded mandates."
He bestowed a cheerful grin on everyone at the table. "All of which is just fine with me. I prefer any amount of mess and imperfection to a slick authoritarian regime any day."
"Does anyone have an update on what's happening at the Fulda end of things? I'm afraid that we've pretty much been leaving Wes Jenkins to his own devices." Steve Salatto was moving through the morning's agenda fairly briskly.
Weckherlin looked up from his note-taking, annoyed that young Samuel Ebert, whom he had left in his place at the desk in the outer office, was interrupting the meeting.
"My apologies, but he says that it is very important." Ebert came around the table and handed a note to Salatto.
"Who is Constantin Ableidinger?" Steve asked, after scanning it.
"I am not familiar with the name, Herr Salatto," Weckherlin answered.
Ebert opened his mouth, looked at Maydene Utt, then closed it again. The senior auditors were not particularly happy that their juniors had been drafted for other jobs in the administration during this summer's crisis—particularly not after the Krausold debacle. Ebert, Heubel, and Fischer spent a lot of their time keeping their mouths closed and trying to look inconspicuous.
"Why does he want to see me?"
"Since I don't know who he is, I don't have the slightest idea." Weckherlin again.
Ebert opened his mouth. "Excuse me, Herr Salatto. But I believe that Herr Haun may know him. And Herr Blackwell."
Steve looked at them. Both shook their heads. "I've heard the name," Johnnie F. said, "but I've never met him."
"Put him off." Steve waved Ebert out of the room.
He didn't move. Looked at Herr Haun and Herr Blackwell. "Sirs, forgive me. He gave me this to show you."
Scott reached out his hand. Ebert was handing him a well-read copy of Common Sense.
"Well, I will be goddamned." He passed it over to Johnnie F. "Remember him, now? He told us we'd likely meet again, if he wasn't unlucky."
Johnnie F. stared down at the book in his hands. "Him? He's Ableidinger?"
"Come on, Scott, what's going on?" Steve was becoming impatient.
"You've got Big Bad Brillo himself standing in your outer office. And now we've finally put a name to him. Not just that `Helmut' alias, or whatever you'd call it. What in hell is he doing here? Did he just walk in?"
"Yes sir," Ebert said. "Like anyone else with business in the palace."
Steve was looking at young Ebert. "How come you thought that Johnnie F. and Scott would know him?"
"Well, they've been up there. To where he has his headquarters now, on the Coburg border, since they decided Frankenwinheim wasn't safe enough. Several times. I just assumed that they would. And Herr Hawker in Bamberg has the Hearts and Minds team's printing done by Frau Else Kronacher. I know that from checking the invoices."
"You've known his name all along?"
"Not his name, no, Herr Salatto. But I recognized him certainly, when he walked in. No one who has ever heard the Ram speak is likely to forget him. I've heard him. So have Fischer and Heubel."
Ebert paused. "Herr Krausold did, too. Before, ah . . . We're, well, we're down-timers, you know. People don't notice us, the way they do you. And we're young, the three of us. Like most of the people who go to his speeches. They don't turn anyone away."
Anita raised her eyebrows. "Frau Kronacher?"
"The woman who is called `the ewe.'" From Ebert's tone of voice, it was clear he assumed that everyone knew that. "She prints all the pamphlets coming out of Bamberg."
Everyone was staring at him. Nervously, the young German intern looked to Johnnie F. for support.
"But—Herr Haun. Surely you knew this? You visit her shop every time you're in Bamberg."
All stares shifted to Johnnie F. He cleared his throat.
"Well. Ah."
Steve Salatto rolled his eyes. "Jesus H. Christ. The idea, Johnnie, is that we're supposed to win over their hearts and minds. Not—goddamit—the other way around."
"Well," Johnnie F. repeated. "Ah."
Emma Thornton still couldn't quite believe this was really happening. It all seemed like something out of a bad movie.
Desperately, she looked over at Meyfarth, as if he might reassure her. But the Lutheran pastor's face, though stiffly composed, was also as pale as a sheet.
Guess not.
Both of them were tied to chairs in the dungeon. Well, not exactly a "dungeon." The big chamber was a half-basement, with narrow windows up on the walls, allowing some light into the room.
"Torture chamber," she'd call it, except it really had more of a resemblance to a very primitive dentist's office. Which didn't make her feel any better at all. Especially given the "dentist" and his assistant.
The "dentist" wasn't so bad, maybe. If he'd actually been a dentist. Just a man in late middle-age, round-shouldered and with something of a stoop, wearing a nondescript cloth coat.
The problem was that Emma knew his actual position. He was Freiherr von Bimbach's official gaol-keeper and executioner—a post which, in this time and place, doubled as "official torturer."
His much younger journeyman assistant was even worse. No unobtrusive cloth coat for him. He was wearing the sort of outfit that blacksmiths wore while working in their shops. And he was just about as big and bulky as any blacksmith Emma had ever seen.
There was even a brazier glowing in a corner. With tongs being heated in it!
Unbelievably, things got worse. The door to the chamber was opened by a soldier, who ushered in the lord of the castle. He was holding something in his hand, but Emma was too preoccupied with the Freiherr himself to notice what it was.
Emma stared at him. This was the first good, up-close look she'd had of Freiherr Fuchs von Bimbach since her kidnapping.
His appearance was . . . not promising. Bimbach was in his forties, stocky to the point of being overweight, and with a hard and heavy face. Clean-shaven, which made his jowls prominent.
He came right over to her and held up the object in his hand. Now, she saw that it was one of the pieces of Mormon literature she'd hastily stuck into her pocket when she'd been lured away from her stand in Bamberg.
"You are a heretic," von Bimbach stated. "Here is the proof of it. Heresy is a capital crime, and I am charged with enforcing the law. And I have the Halsgericht."
Emma rallied her will. "Not the new laws. You can't—"
Von Bimbach slapped her across the face with the booklet. "You do not have permission to speak."
He moved over to Meyfarth and held the booklet under his nose. "And you! A man who claims to be a Lutheran pastor, no less. You have tolerated this—no, have conspired with her."
Meyfarth said nothing. But he returned the Freiherr's glare without flinching.
After a moment, von Bimbach turned away. The soldier who had ushered him in was still standing at the open door. The Freiherr beckoned and the man brought him over a packet. Apparently he'd been carrying it with him.
Von Bimbach went over to a nearby table and spread open the packet. Emma could now see that it contain paper and writing material.
"You will compose a letter to your authorities," von Bimbach stated. "To abuse the term. Both of you. And you will sign it."
"I will not!" Emma hissed. Meyfarth shook his head.
Von Bimbach gave them a long, heavy stare. "Yes, you will."
By now, Emma's fear has been replaced by sheer outrage. "I will not! Go ahead and torture me, if you want to. I still won't!"
The Freiherr's sneer was something out of a lousy movie, too. "Not you, witch. For my negotiations—unfortunately—I shall probably need you and the so-called pastor intact. Still, you will the compose the letter."
He swiveled his head to the soldier again. "Bring in the old woman."
"You promised me they wouldn't hurt her!" Judith Neideckerin shrieked at Noelle, half-rising from the chair in her chambers.
Noelle couldn't meet her eyes, yet. All she could do was stare out of the window.
Another shriek. "Let's kill him! Now!"
"We can't," Noelle hissed.
"You have a gun! An uptime gun! Don't lie to me, I know you have it!"
That was finally enough to break Noelle's paralysis. She spun around and faced Judith squarely.
"Yes, I do." She reached into the pocket of her heavy skirt and drew out the Browning automatic. "Here it is. I've got it loaded, too. But does it look like a magic wand to you? It's got less than ten rounds. And they're not very powerful. What we call a .32 caliber."
Hissing, again: "A so-called `lady's gun,' that Dan Frost thought I could handle better. As slender as I am. Damn him!"
She stuffed the pistol back into the pocket. "But it doesn't matter, Judith. Even if I had a .44 Magnum—and assuming I could handle the great thing—it wouldn't matter. The soldiers are on alert, all over the Schloss."
"The staff—"
Noelle shook her head. "Not now. Not yet. They're not ready to take on the Freiherr's mercenaries, all by themselves. And if they did, they'd probably be beaten down, anyway. Except for the blacksmith and his apprentices—maybe some of the stable hands—they're mostly just clerks and servants."
Judith slumped back into her chair and lowered her head into her hands. Then, started sobbing.
Noelle went over and placed an arm around her shoulder. "I don't think he's planning to kill your mother."
"He's hurting her," came the words between the sobs. Then, Judith lowered her hands and stared at the floor through tear-filled eyes.
"For the first time—ever—I wish the swine had sired a child on me. So I could strangle it."
Noelle tightened the arm. "No, Judith. You wouldn't."
After a while, she added: "Just wait. There'll be a time. Soon, I think."
The torturer and his assistant had the old woman strapped into the contrivance that had reminded Emma at first of a very primitive dentist's chair. Except now she could see that it was more like the equipment that hospitals used for women in labor. The pastor's landlady was secured to the wooden base of the horrible thing with a heavy leather belt across her waist. Her hands were immobilized by other straps and her feet had been locked into stirrups.
Her legs were half-spread and bent upward, removing any support. The torturer pushed back the woman's skirt, exposing her left shin.
"Now."
His beefy assistant raised the iron bar in his hands and brought it down. The sound of the breaking bone was quite audible all through the chamber.
"I'll write it! I'll write it!" Emma shouted, her voice so loud it almost drowned the old woman's cry of pain.
Von Bimbach looked at the pastor. Meyfarth swallowed.
"The other leg," the Freiherr commanded.
The torturer and his assistant had already moved to the opposite side of the apparatus. Again, the torturer shoved aside the skirt; again, the iron bar came down.
"I'll write it," said Meyfarth. His voice sounded like a croak. Emma could barely hear the words, beneath the screams.