1636 The Devil's Opera (Ring of Fire)

1636: The Devil’s Opera - eARC

Eric Flint and David Carrico

Advance Reader Copy

Unproofed

BAEN BOOKS by ERIC FLINT

The Ring of Fire series:

1632

1633
with David Weber

1634: The Baltic War
with David Weber

1634: The Galileo Affair
with Andrew Dennis

1634: The Bavarian Crisis
with Virginia DeMarce

1634: The Ram Rebellion
with Virginia DeMarce et al

1635: The Cannon Law
with Andrew Dennis

1635: The Dreeson Incident
with Virginia DeMarce

1635: The Tangled Web
by Virginia DeMarce

1635: The Eastern Front

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

Grantville Gazette V
ed. by Eric Flint

Grantville Gazette VI
ed. by Eric Flint

Ring of Fire
ed. by Eric Flint

Ring of Fire II
ed. by Eric Flint

Ring of Fire III
ed. by Eric Flint

Time Spike
with Marilyn Kosmatka

With Dave Freer:

Rats, Bats & Vats • The Rats, The Bats & the Ugly

Pyramid Scheme • Pyramid Power • Slow Train to Arcturus

With Mercedes Lackey & Dave Freer:

The Shadow of the Lion • This Rough Magic • Much Fall of Blood • Burdens of the Dead • Sorceress of Karres

With David Drake:

The Tyrant

The Belisarius Series

An Oblique Approach • In the Heart of Darkness

Belisarius I: Thunder at Dawn • Destiny's Shield • Fortune's Stroke

Belisarius II: Storm at Noontide • The Tide of Victory

The Dance of Time • Belisarius III: The Flames of Sunset

With David Weber:

Crown of Slaves • Torch of Freedom

With K.D. Wentworth:

The Course of Empire • The Crucible of Empire

With Ryk E. Spoor:

Boundary • Threshold • Portal

Joe's World series:

The Philosophical Strangler • Forward the Mage
(with Richard Roach)

Mother of Demons

For a complete list of Eric Flint books and to purchase all of these titles in e-book format, please go to www.baen.com

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?”