1636 The Devil's Opera (Ring of Fire) (17 page)

She rose to her feet. “Hilde, show Master Schardius out, please.”

* * *

Simon was developing a reputation as a reliable messenger and delivery boy. His new clothes made him a bit more presentable in the eyes of the businessmen of Greater Magdeburg, and he found himself in some demand. Even so, he never neglected Frau Zenzi. Every day he would appear at the bakery’s door not long before sundown to do the sweeping.

One day the door to the bakery opened just as Simon was reaching for the handle, and he looked up to see two familiar figures coming out of the bakery. Startled, he hesitated for a moment, then stepped down and to one side. They came down the steps and turned to face him.

“I know you,” the short one said—Sergeant Hoch, Simon reminded himself. “You’re Hans Metzger’s young friend, aren’t you? I’ve seen you at the fights.”

Simon fought the urge to duck and straightened instead. “Yes, Sergeant. Hans calls me his luck, so I go with him to all the fights.”

“You must be good luck,” Lieutenant Chieske laughed, “because I haven’t seen him lose yet.”

“And you won’t,” Simon replied fiercely. “Hans is the best.”

Both men nodded. “He is indeed,” Sergeant Hoch said.

“Tell me your name again, boy,” the tall up-timer said.

“Simon. Simon Bayer.”

“Well, Simon, no fighter stays on top forever. There comes a time where, if nothing else, age will slow him down. There’s always someone younger, faster, stronger, just waiting for that to happen.”

“Did you have fights in the up-time?” Simon asked, intrigued.

“Oh, yes. And they were a big deal, too. Men would fight at the town and state level, men would fight at the national level, men from different countries would even fight at the world level,” the up-timer said. “Todd Pierpoint used to fight when he was young, back before the Ring of Fire.” Lieutenant Chieske grinned. “Heck, even Mike Stearns used to fight professionally.”

Now Simon was really surprised. “The prime minister used to be a fighter?”

“Former prime minister,” the up-timer corrected. “And yes he did, until like I said, he ran into a man who was younger and faster. He might not have been stronger, but he was younger and faster, and according to Mike he just about took Mike’s head off.”

“Huh.” Simon thought about that. A man who called Emperor Gustavus by his first name used to fight like Hans did. His mind swung in circles as he tried to grasp that. “Was he a world fighter?”

“No!” Chieske laughed. “Mike was never
that
good. But even now, when I’m sure he’s slowed a step or two, I wouldn’t want to face him. The point is, your friend Hans won’t always be able to fight like this. There will come a time where, even if he doesn’t lose, he starts getting hurt. That will be the time when his friends will need to talk him out of fighting. Friends like you, maybe.” The up-timer gave Simon a sobering look.

Simon didn’t want to think like that. He wanted to think that Hans would always win, would always come out of his fights with barely a mark on him. But Lieutenant Chieske’s words crawled into his mind, settled in the back of it and wouldn’t leave. He looked away, then made himself look back to the policemen and nod.

Faint expressions of surprise and respect crossed their faces, and they nodded in return as if to an equal. With that, they took their leave.

Simon looked at their backs, disquieted. After they rounded the corner, he turned and went into the bakery. He said nothing, just went to where the broom was stored and started sweeping. A few minutes later, Frau Zenzi came into the room.

“Oh, good, Simon, you’re here. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Yah. I came in after the policemen left.” He continued sweeping while he talked. “Frau Zenzi?”

“Yes?”

“Do you know those two policemen?”

“Oh, yes, for some time now.”

“Are they good men?”

Frau Zenzi stopped what she was doing and straightened up. “Yes, they are. They saved my Willi.” Willi was the blind boy that Zenzi and her husband had adopted several weeks ago. He usually worked in the back of the bakery. Simon remembered some kind of to-do over his coming to them, but none of the details would come to mind. “They protected him and brought him to me. They come often to see Willi. They are good men, for all that one of them is an up-timer and the other one is the son of a patrician family.” Her voice was rock solid, so much so that you could have used her statement for a foundation stone. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason,” Simon replied. “It’s just that they keep coming around my friend Hans, and I cannot figure out why.”

“Hans. Is he the man that meets you outside the shop some nights?” Her tone was disapproving.

“Uh-huh.” Simon kept his head down as he swept.

“Simon, he looks to be a hard man, one who knows things and people that you should not know.”

He stopped and looked her in the eye. “He is not like that, Frau Zenzi. He is a good man. He has a job and he works hard at it. He’s got a crippled sister at home that he takes care of. He takes care of me, too. He is not an evil man, or wicked.”

Zenzi’s expression was still doubtful. “If you say so, Simon. But mind you, if you ever need someplace to come, if trouble comes, you come to me.”

Simon ducked his head again. “Yes, Frau Zenzi.”

She stared at him a while longer while he swept, then left the room. When he was done and had put the broom away, she gave him a loaf of bread, tilted her head with a wry expression, and patted him on the shoulder without a word. He left the bakery wondering what that was all about.

* * *

Byron looked down at his partner. “Any chance the boy could tell us anything?”

“Could, maybe,” Gotthilf replied. “That’s if he knows anything at all. He appears to be a recent acquaintance for Metzger, after all, and why would Metzger tell a young boy like that anything? But if the boy does know something, whether he would say anything or not is another matter. He seems to be very attached to Metzger, and I doubt he would say anything without talking to him first.”

“Okay.” They walked along in silence, eyes moving this way and that, watching the street around them. “But we’ve got to get a break somewhere. If we don’t find a lead soon, the captain’s going to tell us to move on to another case.”

“Yah.”

Chapter 22

Logau cursed as he trotted down the street, feet crunching on the gravel, one hand holding his hat on his head and the other grasping his walking stick. He was supposed to have met with Frau Marla and her friends a quarter-hour ago, and he was late. It was his own fault, too. If he hadn’t started doodling with another epigram, he would have been there in plenty of time. Of course there wasn’t a cab for hire within sight. And he’d come away from his rooms with his evening walking stick, instead of his morning walking stick.

Some days the world just conspired against him, he was sure of it.

He was headed for the Royal Academy of Music, which was located across a plaza from the new opera house in the southwest corner of the Neustadt section of Old Magdeburg. Rather than take one of the narrow bridges across the Big Ditch into the Altstadt, then have to cross it again to get to the Neustadt, he turned north on the boulevard that paralleled the canal and followed it, dodging women waving broadsheets and newspapers for sale, wagons, carts, drays, animals and swearing teamsters alike until he got to the crossroad that ran through a gate in the rebuilt city walls into the Neustadt.

Once he was through the gate Logau slowed to a fast walk. It would not do to arrive at the rehearsal out of breath, after all. He adjusted his jacket, flicked a bit of lint from his lapel, and tilted his hat to its proper angle just as he reached the steps to the academy.

Inside the building, not having a clue where he was to go, he stopped a student. “Can you tell me where to find Room Six?” he asked.

“Down this hall, turn right at the first cross-corridor, then about halfway down it on the left,” the young woman replied.

“My thanks. I’m to meet Frau Linder there.”

“In that case,” the student laughed, “just follow your ears after you turn the corner. She’s already in full voice.”

Logau touched his walking stick to the brim of his hat in acknowledgment, and the young woman dropped a curtsey before scurrying on her way. He made his way to the designated corridor and rounded the corner. No sooner had he done so than he realized why the young woman had laughed. The unmistakable sound of Frau Linder’s voice filled the hallway, even though the door to Room VI was shut. “They need to invent a way to deaden the sound,” he muttered to himself.

He knocked on the door just as the singing stopped. A moment later, the door was opened by a young man that Logau didn’t recognize. “Ah, Friedrich, you’re here,” Frau Linder said. “Let Herr Logau in, Rudolf. He’s playing a part in this.” The young man stepped aside, and Logau entered the room, doffing his hat as he did so. There was a table conveniently by the door already burdened by coats, so he laid his hat atop the pile. He unbuttoned his coat, but left it on as he was still feeling the chill from his brisk walk.

Marla came and took him by the arm. “Everyone, this is Friedrich von Logau, writer, poet, and epigrammist. He’s the wordsmith who gave us the German words for this song. Friedrich, let me introduce you to the guys.”

Friedrich paid close attention as Marla introduced the men in the room: the brothers Tuchman, Rudolf and Josef, who smiled and nodded; Thomas Schwartzberg, tall and lanky, who gave an easy grin; Hermann Katzberg, short enough to almost be a dwarf; Isaac Fremdling, dark and intense, standing with arms crossed; Paul Georg Seiler, dour but still giving a nod; and three of the Amsel brothers, Matthaüs, Marcus and Johann, alike as three sons of the same parents could be, with only the difference in their years providing any solid clue as to which was which.

These were the men in Marla Linder and Franz Sylwester’s inner circle. He noted them and made sure he knew the names and faces. These were the men who had come to Magdeburg and coalesced into a nucleus of musicians around which the new music seemed to pour out like water from a fountain. It behooved him to know them, and know them well.

“My thanks to you all,” he responded to the introductions. “I am here to simply see how my words fit with the music. Do not let me stop or interfere with anything.” He looked around for a chair, but saw they were all occupied. There was only a stool in one corner. He strode over and took a seat, resting his chin on his clasped hands atop his walking stick.

For the next half hour he was a silent witness to a master at work. The Amsels and Paul Georg Seiler were also just observers, but the others played the music, three violins, two flutes, and a harp. Marla worked with them as separate groups first: beating time; leading them to phrase certain notes together; adjusting the tempo here, the volume there; cajoling, urging, driving them to achieve a fusion of sound. Friedrich noticed that both Franz and Matthaüs Amsel were making notes along the way.

At the end of the half hour, Marla brushed an errant strand of hair out of her face, looked at them all, and said, “All right, let’s try it together. English first.”

She stepped to one side and Franz stepped forward. “One, two, three,” he counted. The three violinists began, playing unison notes, low-pitched and regular on the beat. At the end of the second measure, Marla opened her mouth.

“Do you hear the people sing…”

Logau sat, transfixed. He almost forgot to breathe. God above, the woman’s voice was like nothing he had ever heard. He had heard her sing from a distance once, but to be in this room, to sit almost within arm’s reach of her, and to hear her sing so…so indescribably. For once, he, the man of words, had no words at hand that could describe such a sensation.

The song was short, and all too soon Marla’s voice ceased sounding. Logau twitched and sat up straight, taking a deep breath.

“Good,” Marla said matter-of-factly. “We’ll work the parts some more later, but that was good. Now with the German words, so Herr Logau—Friedrich—can hear his work and judge its fitness. From the top, gentlemen.”

Again Franz gave the count; again the violins began the low rhythmic pulsing. Again Marla’s lips opened, and beauty poured forth.

Logau forced himself to ignore the siren song of Marla’s voice and concentrate on the words. Image followed image: angry men singing, men who would no longer be slaves, men responding to the sound of the drums, all for the sake of tomorrow. Then came the verse calling these men forth to stand forth and be a part of reaching that future.

The chorus of angry men sounded again. It was followed by the second verse calling men to sacrifice and martyrdom. And then the chorus again, the final time, flutes skirling and violins somehow evoking martial airs.

The last line rang out, and the song again came to a close. Logau closed his eyes for a moment, calming his heart. He opened them again, to find the gaze of all the others fixed on him.

He licked his lips, for a moment uncertain. “Frau Marla, are you sure…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Are you certain you want to sing this song, now, the way things are?”

“Now, yes, by all means now,” Marla replied forcefully. “This song was made for this time. I will stand before the face of the chancellor and throw this in his teeth if I must. Just watch me.”

Logau looked around the room, suddenly aware that he was an alien in this group. Thomas and Hermann echoed Marla’s smile. The others, even Johann Amsel, who was not much more than a youth, wore hard-eyed expressions. He was struck by the resemblance to a painting he had once seen of Alexander the Great surrounded by his captains. He saw in this room that same edge, that same ferocity, that same obdurate hardness that was in the faces of the captains in that picture. Being on the receiving end of those stares was not a comfortable sensation.

He stood, gave a slight bow to Marla, and addressed her formally. “As you will, Frau Linder.” He was not astonished to hear that his voice was a bit unsteady. He stepped to the table and collected his hat, then turned to face them all again. “And do you know when you will unleash this upon an unsuspecting world?”