"This has to be," Anita Masaniello said, "one of the slimiest letters I have ever read."
"Ah," Constantin Ableidinger answered, "it was written, of course, by Dr. Lenz. `Pestilenz.' Who delivered it in person."
"At least, apparently, Emma and Meyfarth are alive. And still in fairly good shape, if we can rely on their notes. But I simply cannot believe the sheer idiocy of this."
"The Freiherr believes, of course, that the location of his Schloss, well within the borders of Bayreuth, immunizes him from all serious danger."
Anita, since coming up to Bamberg the previous month to take charge of connecting the dots between the Thorntons, Meyfarth, the Neidecker woman who had been his landlady, the Freiherr, the printer's widow who was the ewe—though not bearing any actual resemblance to the logo of Ewegenia—and who was still, following the city council elections, locked into a battle with the local guild on the topic of forced marriage of said daughter to a candidate of its choice, and anything else she could put through her analytical techniques, had gotten pretty good at parsing Ableidinger's conversation.
"Believes?"
"Margrave Christian has accepted oaths of allegiance from many of the farmers and townsmen who were previously considered to be the subjects of the lesser nobility within his territories."
"Nice way to put it." She shifted uncomfortably. The theory had been that last month, already, she would be on her way back to Grantville to have the baby at Leahy Medical Center with an uptime doctor doing the honors for the Salatto blessed event. Then Ableidinger showed up in Würzburg. Plus a sudden SOS from the Fulda people that drew off a half dozen of the Würzburg staff.
She looked down at her stomach. If they didn't make progress about getting Emma and Meyfarth back pretty soon, she was going to have the baby in the Bamberg headquarters of the Franconian administration. Probably behind her desk; then pick herself up like a pioneer woman and go back to negotiating. Von Bimbach was demanding that they barbecue the ram. Not just Brillo. He wanted to fill Franconia with roast mutton.
"So he wants to parley."
"The Freiherr says that he is willing to return them unharmed. On reasonable terms. Reasonable from his perspective. And parley only under the conditions that he set."
Anita picked up the letter again. By one corner, carefully, between thumb and forefinger. "Why me? Why not you, Vince?
The question was reasonable enough. Vince Marcantonio was the Franconian administration's head in Bamberg. He should have been prestigious enough for any Freiherr to meet with.
Vince Marcantonio looked a little abashed. "Previous intemperate statements about what I would do to the certain parts of the man's anatomy if I ever caught him, I'm afraid. Wade Jackson said worse. We were more than a little pissed that he plucked them out right from under our noses. And a reporter overheard us."
"Curses. I suppose that Cliff Priest can't possibly get back here, and then up to Bayreuth, by the deadline this guy has set?"
"Not a prayer."
"Okay, go back to Lenz. Say that I'll go up and talk to the Freiherr. Not in his Schloss. No way am I going inside the man's walls, not if I could bring the whole USE army with me, which I can't. Outside. In a field. With a big enough batch of troops along to make a difference. Tom O'Brien and his pick of the crop. As many as von Bimbach will let him bring."
"And," Constantin Ableidinger said, "stipulate that people have the right to come and watch. Ordinary people. Standing around the edges of the field. Witnesses to make sure that Fuchs von Bimbach attempts no treacherous undertaking. He can hardly object to that."
The negotiations were going well, Freiherr von Bimbach thought. The fact that Salatto's heavily pregnant wife had actually appeared reinforced his convictions about the importance of his hostages. Which meant that his strategy was going well. Once she acceded to the demands that Lenz was presenting, he would have humiliated the man, Salatto, doubly by doing it through the woman. Much more effective than dealing with the administrator directly.
Yes, he could afford to be quite intransigent. Require them to give him the ram and the ewe to get the hostages back; send out propaganda proclaiming that this showed how little the USE cared for the Franconians by comparison to his own people, while hanging the rebels. Demonstrate to the Swedes that only he was capable of bringing sanity back to the region.
Lenz thought that he was doing well on the Freiherr's behalf. He had not conceded a single point. All they had to do now was wait for the uptimers to admit that he had won.
Breaking into the torture chamber proved to be as simple as opening the door and walking in. There had been no soldier standing guard, as Noelle had feared there might be. That wasn't really surprising, though. Most if not all of the soldiers still in the Schloss were at the windows on the upper floors, watching the parley taking place on the field beyond the castle.
She took three steps into the room, with Eddie following her.
"Where are they, do you think?" She looked around the large empty room. There was nothing here that even vaguely resembled "cells." In fact, to her surprise, the chamber had very little resemblance to what she'd thought a "dungeon" would look like. It was more like a half-basement a man might devote to a workshop.
It was not gloomy at all. There was a bright sun outside, and plenty of light came through the windows near the ceiling.
Before Eddie could reply, Noelle got her answer. The door opposite the one she and Eddie had entered swung open. A middle-aged man came though, followed by a very big younger one.
"What are you doing here?" the man demanded. "Get out!"
Noelle pulled out her pistol. "I want the prisoners. Now."
The man gaped at her, for a moment. Then shouted: "Seize her, Johannes!"
The big assistant came around and moved toward her. Noelle brought up the gun. Before she could aim it, Eddie grabbed her by the shoulders and swung her aside. Then, lunged at the assistant.
A moment later, the two men were grappling. Noelle stepped to the side. The older man—the castle's executioner and torturer, she assumed—was just staring at her. He was not more than fifteen feet away.
Weeks of tightly repressed fury boiled to the surface. She raised the gun, grabbed it with both hands as Dan Frost had taught her, and fired.
Four times. Ricochets zinged from the stone walls, causing her to duck frantically.
When she looked up, she saw the executioner running out the door he'd come in through.
She'd missed. All four shots!
A heavy weight hammered into her, knocking her down. On her knees, gasping from the shock, Noelle looked up and saw that she'd been accidentally slammed into by Eddie and his opponent, as they wrestled fiercely.
Eddie was losing the match. Pretty badly. He was a big enough young man, and stronger than he looked. But he was simply overmatched by his opponent.
As she watched, the torturer's assistant swung Eddie around and slammed him against some sort of huge, horrid-looking chair. The impact caused Eddie to lose his grip on the man's arms. A moment later, the torturer had him by the throat and was starting to choke him. Bent backward over the chair the way he was, Eddie had little leverage. His hands scrabbled helplessly at his strangler's thick arms.
Noelle lunged to her feet and strode over.
She couldn't afford to miss again, and she certainly didn't trust her marksmanship. But how—
She saw an opening and thrust the pistol under the torturer's right arm. Under, and up against his chin, below the jaw. As soon as she felt the heavy flesh yielding beneath the barrel, she fired.
The torturer flung his arms aside, and stumbled back from Eddie. Blood was gushing everywhere. He smashed against a wall and collapsed to the floor, his back propped against the stonework and his head hanging loosely.
Noelle thought he was already dead. He certainly looked like it. But as big and strong as he was, she didn't dare take a chance. She stepped forward and shoved the barrel against the top of his head. Pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing. The gun had misfired.
It wasn't supposed to do that!
As much angry as confused, she stared down at the weapon in her hand. Then, hearing a grunt, turned her head.
Eddie had straightened up from the chair and was rubbing his throat with his hands. There were already bruises forming there. His eyes were wide open. He tried to speak, but couldn't. Just swallowed, before removing one hand and pointing to something on the floor.
Noelle looked down and saw the magazine of a pistol lying on the floor; one cartridge was sticking straight up from the lips. Startled, she looked down at the gun in her hand. Sure enough, the magazine was missing.
What—
Belatedly, she remembered. Dan Frost had warned her once against firing the gun pressed directly against a body. That might produce too much pressure in the chamber, he'd said. The bullet would fire, but it might damage the gun.
Apparently, it had blown out the whole magazine.
She stooped, picked it up, and looked at it. It seemed undamaged, at least; she thumbed the top cartridge back in place.
But would the gun still work?
There was only one way to find out. Which she needed to, since she might very well need to use the gun again. She shoved the magazine back into the pistol and pulled the slide. Then, looked around for a suitable target.
There wasn't any, that didn't risk another ricochet. Except . . .
The body of the torturer slid from wall. The sound drew her eyes. She saw that from a half-sitting position, it had gone to being sprawled across the floor. The man's eyes were half-open, staring emptily. There was still blood spilling out from the gaping wound, but it was no longer spurting. The man's heart had stopped.
Not surprisingly, she realized. Even with a .32 caliber, that shot must have scrambled half his brains.
She looked over at Eddie. He shrugged.
Noelle turned, raised the gun, aimed it carefully with both hands at the center mass of the torturer's body. The target wasn't more than six or seven feet away. She pulled the trigger.
The gun worked, sure enough. But she missed again. Another ricochet zinging all over the stonewalled chamber had her and Eddie down on the floor.
When she looked up, Eddie even managed a laugh.
"Okay, fine," she snarled. "So I'm not Annie Oakley."
Eddie had read a lot of uptime books, in the three years since the Ring of Fire. "Sure aren't," he croaked. "But you do a pretty good imitation of Calamity Jane."
Anita asked herself whether Lenz was actually insane? Or his master was insane? There was no way that Gustavus Adolphus would ever place Freiherr von Bimbach in charge of Franconia!
No sooner had Noelle and Eddie gotten to their feet than a small group of men came into the chamber from the main entrance she'd used to enter. She was relieved to see that it was the blacksmith and three of his journeymen.
"You are not hurt?" he asked. She shook her head.
He looked over at the body of the torturer's assistant. "Saved us some work, I see. Very good. Where is the swine himself? And the prisoners?"
She shook her head again. "I don't know where the prisoners are." She pointed at the still-open door through which the torturer had fled. "He ran through there."
The blacksmith headed for the door.
"Be careful," Noelle cautioned. "I missed, when I shot at him."
The blacksmith's answering grunt made it crystal clear that he was not especially worried. Given his own size, and that of the three journeymen following him, that wasn't perhaps surprising. Especially since all four of them were carrying heavy hammers.
A few seconds later, she heard him call out. "In here, Fräulein Murphy!"
When she passed through the door, with Eddie on her heels, she found herself in a corridor. Several heavy doors lined it on the left. Finally, something that looked like it was supposed to! Those were cell doors, she was quite sure. Leaving aside their heavy look, the hinges faced into the corridor.
But she didn't give them more than a glance. Her eyes were drawn to the figure sitting against the far wall, over whom the blacksmith and his journeymen were hovering.
It was the torturer. He was moaning, and had his hands clasped over the ribs on his right side.
"Apparently you did not miss with one of the bullets, Fräulein," the blacksmith said cheerfully.
He reached down, seized the torturer by the scruff of his coat, and jerked him roughly to his feet.
"Up, swine. I have business with you."
The torturer shrieked. The blacksmith ignored him, turning instead to one of his journeymen. "Start prying the hinges off the doors, Hans. Easier than trying to break the locks."
The younger blacksmith nodded.
"You have a chisel with you? If not, you can use mine. When I'm done with it."
The journeyman reached into the big pouch on his work belt and drew forth a heavy chisel.
"Good," the blacksmith said. "Mine might be a bit slippery."
He moved toward Noelle, hauling the torturer with him. "Come with me, Dieter and Axel. You can help Hans in a moment. Please be so good as to stand aside, Fräulein."
She and Eddie stepped away from the door. After the blacksmith and his two assistants passed through, they followed.
"This will do," the blacksmith said. He slammed the torturer against the heavy chair. The man groaned again.
"Grab his hair, Dieter. Axel, press his head against the wood. I want the neck braced."
Before Noelle could quite grasp what they were doing, the two journeymen had the torturer's head and neck pinned against one of the thick wooden legs of the chair. The blacksmith drew out a chisel. It was very big, perhaps an inch and half across the blade.
He placed the chisel firmly against the man's neck. Right against the spine. Then, lifted his hammer.
"Jesus," Noelle whispered.
The blow was hard, sure, craftsmanlike. The torturer jerked once. Then his body became slack. The unmistakable stench of urine and feces filled the air.
The two journeymen let the body slide to the floor. The blacksmith stooped and took the time to wipe off the chisel blade on the dead man's coat, before rising to his feet.
The look he gave Noelle seemed as hard and solid as the metal he worked with. "The ram has taken Halsgericht now. This swine"—he gestured with the hammer—"once executed one of my apprentices. For a theft so petty he should not have been more than flogged."
All Noelle could do was nod. Looking down, she saw that she still had the pistol in her hand. She'd forgotten all about the gun, and the fact that it was still armed and cocked.
Dan Frost would have words to say about that, if he ever found out. Carefully, Noelle disarmed the weapon.
By the time she was done, she heard familiar voices in the corridor. Then Emma and Meyfarth were coming through, and she was able to shake off the horror of the past minutes.
"You're all right?"
Emma nodded, as did the pastor.
Noelle turned back to the blacksmith. "What's happening in the rest of the castle?"
The blacksmith grinned. "Die Neideckerin has everything well in hand. The Schloss now belongs to the ram."
"The soldiers?"
Amazingly, the grin widened. "Die Neideckerin reminded them of what happened at Mitwitz. At some length. I do not foresee any problems."
Fuchs von Bimbach noticed that at the edges of the field, some of the people in the crowd were beginning to move, turn their heads.
No danger, though, he was sure. There couldn't be. Margrave Christian's troops were here—a guarantor that the uptimers would not be sending any more men through Bayreuth than the number to which von Bimbach had agreed. In any case, people were looking toward the Schloss, not away from it. Pride prevented him from turning his head around.
The captain of von Bimbach's mercenaries did look around. There was chaos at the castle gate. Not people trying to force their way in. People trying to force their way out, it looked like. He was dismounted; someone had led his horse back to the paddock area. He started to run, clumsy in his high-heeled riding boots on the dry hummocks of sheep-grazed grass.
Ableidinger smiled. The gawkers and onlookers at that end of the field were breaking toward the castle gate, far faster than the captain was moving. Meeting the party that was forcing it way out. Fifteen to twenty people there, if they hadn't lost anyone when the servants and staff seized the castle. Not experienced fighters, any of them; mostly women. But it hardly mattered, as Ableidinger had known it wouldn't—especially with that somewhat peculiar but very capable and determined young American woman set loose in their midst.
It could not have been that hard, really. The Freiherr was not the world's most popular employer. Sixty-three points still held the record for specific grievances from any Franconian lord's subjects, as far as he was aware.
Ableidinger would have liked to run toward the castle also, but he had to be a model of discipline. He held himself steady. Wearing uptime clothing, hair short, closely shaved, inconspicuous within the small knot of officials behind Anita Masaniello's chair.
There was a ring of his people, now, around those who had come out of the castle.
About half the onlookers were running away. Uninvolved. Real spectators. Prudent people. The rest, his own, were starting to turn toward the end of the field behind him.
Yes. The right livery. Margrave Christian's men. Reinforcing the few troops of the Franconian administrators; interposing themselves between von Bimbach's mercenaries and the uptimers; ringing the party coming out from the castle, a second defensive perimeter around the people in the center.
Von Bimbach had risen from his camp chair, drawn his sword; one of the margrave's men was on him, too, holding a pistol, telling him to sit back down; two more of the margrave's men there, standing at that side of the table.
No shots, so far. No blood.
The party from the castle reached the table. Frau Thornton and Herr Pastor Meyfarth, on their own feet. Frau Masaniello, Salatto's wife, running to embrace them. Herr Thornton following her. Two menservants, liveried, their hands crossed to make a chair, carrying an old woman. Die Neideckerin. Both of her legs splinted. The uptime EMT, the medic they called him, running to her.
A well-dressed woman; far too well-dressed to be a servant. The Freiherr's mistress, then. Sent from Bamberg to his estates, six years ago, for safety. The old woman's daughter. Von Bimbach's leverage against die Neideckerin. Holding a copy of Robert's Rules of Order in one hand; a book in the other. The Book of Mormon. Judith Neidecker had not been so cowed as to accept her mother's abduction and torture meekly. With Fräulein Murphy, she had organized the servants; even, according to the Fräulein, had said that if the ram would send her an ice pick, she would save them all a lot of trouble by putting it through the Freiherr's eardrum and into his brain while he snored.
Ableidinger shivered. The female of the species. Martha Kronacher, who now seemed to consider Pastor Meyfarth to be her property. Ableidinger smiled to himself; Meyfarth had not noticed yet. His own deceased wife. Every man would do well to remember that his wife was one of them. Judith Neideckerin. Judith with the head of Holofernes.
The medic, Matewski was his name, put die Neideckerin on the table; Anita Masaniello sat down again.
The captain of the Freiherr's mercenaries, still running towards the castle, caught his spur in one of the hummocks of sheep-gnawed grass, stumbled, fell on his face.
Ableidinger laughed, a booming laugh heard all across the field. Tensions dropped a notch. Except for Dr. Lenz, who jerked up from his chair. He had been sitting, frozen, through it all. Two of the margrave's troops grasped his arms, held him down.
Anita stood up.
"What should we do with him?" one of the troopers asked her. "Hand him over to you uptimers?"
"Not," Ableidinger said, moving out from the knot of officials. "Not quite yet. There is something that I need to do. Or want to do." He stood there, as if thinking.
Anita sat back down.
Ableidinger beckoned. "Bring him here."
The margrave's men handed the lawyer over to two Jaeger who were wearing the ram badge on their armbands. One of them was Gerhardt Jost.
Tom O'Brien, in charge of the USE/SoTF troops on the field, held his breath.
Ableidinger laughed again. It didn't seem to make Lenz feel any better.
Ableidinger's voice. That booming voice, everyone could hear it. "Ladies and gentlemen!"
O'Brien let his breath out.
"I shouldn't do this, I suppose. But then, I am not a gentleman, anymore than Brillo is a gentleman. Am I?"
The onlookers roared their approval from the edges of the field.
"I present to you! The man who chaired the commission that expelled me from the law school at the University of Jena. Because I had married my late wife rather than leaving her to have our son by herself." Ableidinger put his arm around a boy who had run to him from among the spectators.
Another roar.
"I have wanted to do this ever since." Ableidinger walked up to Lenz, paused an arm's length away, reached out, and twisted his nose. Very hard. It started to bleed.
The crowd loved it.
The voice again. "I probably shouldn't do this, bad for my dignity and prestige you know, and not suitable to a leader. But I've wanted to do it for so long. And I'm a scroungy down-time ram you know, no aristocrat."
Ableidinger turned around, dropped his pants, and mooned Lenz. Including an audible fart.
"All right. Now they can have him. Due process and all that. Give him to the proper authorities."
The crowd went wild.
Tom O'Brien's shoulders sagged a little with relief. Too soon. Anita was saying something.
"Matewski, if you're about finished with Frau Neidecker's legs? Could you scour off the table? This isn't going to take very long, I think. It's my third. And no way am I going inside that castle."