1636 The Devil's Opera (Ring of Fire) (50 page)

* * *

Hans watched as the door to their room finally opened and Ursula came out. She turned and locked the door after Simon and the sergeant joined her.

The eyes of Lieutenant Chieske and the cart driver were fixed on the crippled woman as she negotiated the stars. It made Hans almost sick to watch her lurching movements step by step.

He shook his head, hard, and moved back a step. After a moment, another step. After another moment, another step.

By the time Ursula reached the bottom of the steps, he had retreated totally into the shadows and was about to turn the corner of the nearest street.

Her plaintive “But where is Hans?” tore at his heart as he hurried away.

Hans had never been one for much more that rote lip service to the church, but for the first time in years, he truly prayed.
Go with God, Uschi. Maybe He can keep you safe now, for I can’t. Please, God.

* * *

Simon saw Lieutenant Chieske’s head whip around after Ursula’s cry. He joined both of the detectives in shooting glances in every direction. He even went so far as to run over to the nearby corner and look up and down the other street. Nothing caught his eye.

“Simon,” Sergeant Hoch called out. “You’ve got to come with Fraulein Metzger. Come on.”

With a heart full of dread for his friend, Simon turned his reluctant steps back to the cart, where Ursula waited with the detectives and their driver.

“No sign of him?” the lieutenant asked.

Simon shook his head.

“Right. He knows what he’s doing, and he knows how to get ahold of us. Our job now is to get you two to safety.”

“I’m not going anywhere without Hans,” Ursula declared in strident tones.

“Sorry, Fraulein, but your brother has taken himself off on his own and of his own free will. I don’t know where he went, or what he’s planning on doing. But I do know that he asked us to take you to a safer place than this, and we promised to do it. Ask the boy.”

Ursula looked to Simon, and he nodded. “I heard Hans ask it, Ursula, and I heard the lieutenant and sergeant promise to do it.”

“But where is he?” Desperation now rang in the young woman’s voice.

“Fraulein Metzger,” Sergeant Hoch said, “the way he left tells us that he doesn’t want us to know where he is. My guess is he thinks that by doing this he makes it safer for you. He may well be right.”

The sergeant placed the bag in the cart, then turned back to Ursula. “Take Simon’s word for it, if you won’t take ours, but we need to get you out of here now, before those Hans is running from show up.”

He held out a hand to her, a nonverbal plea.

For a long moment Ursula stood, rigid and unbending, in rejection. But then she sighed, her shoulders slumped, and she reached out a tentative hand to take his.

“Right. That’s settled.” Chieske looked over at Hoch. “Where do you think? The police station for now?”

Hoch shook his head. “My home. They would never think of looking for them there, and there are enough servants around the place to provide protection.”

Chieske mulled that over, and nodded. “Works for me. We’ll post a couple of patrolmen outside as well.”

It took a bit of doing to get the young woman up into the cart without violating her dignity. In the end, Sergeant Hoch scrambled into the cart and took her hands and Chieske placed his hands on her waist. Simon watched with envy as they lifted her into the cart with seeming lack of effort.

The next moment the lieutenant almost threw Simon up into the cart, then he vaulted up to sit beside the driver. He pointed a finger at the driver, the sergeant rapped out some directions, and with a lurch they were off.

Simon looked back. Those rooms were the closest thing to a home he had known for a long time. It hurt to leave them this way, especially since he didn’t know if or when he’d see them again.

Or if or when he’d see Hans again, for that matter.

Chapter 57

Hans leaned against the side of the hovel by the riverside. He had made his way step by careful step, keeping to the shadows, through the exurb and into and through the Neustadt, until he had arrived at the part of the riverbank claimed by the poorest of the fishers. Now he was watching to see if anyone had followed.

A veil seemed to pass in front of his vision. He thought for a moment it was blood seeping into his eyes again from the cut on his forehead, but it cleared before he could run his sleeve across his face. He looked up; just a wisp of cloud passing across the moon.

Right. Enough waiting. He slid around the corner of the shack and knocked on the door. No answer; no sound of anyone stirring. He waited a moment, and knocked again.

“Who comes knocking on my door in the middle of the night?” a woman’s voice demanded.

Hans put his mouth against the crack around the door and spoke just loudly enough to be heard by the person on the other side of the door.

“Hans Metzger.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “Bide a moment.”

He heard a bar being drawn, then the door opened into a darkness blacker than the night outside.

“In.”

Hans stepped through the door, then moved to the side so the woman could close it and put the bar back in place. Then a couple of shuffling steps, followed by the scratching of a match brought a flicker of light, which was transferred to a stub of a candle on a chipped and cracked dish.

The light revealed the face of old Anna the clothes seller. She lifted the dish and held it closer to Hans’ face. He winced as the brightness neared his eyes.

“Frau Anna.”

“Heaven above, lad, what have you been doing to yourself?”

“Won a fight,” he said with a tired smirk.

“Well, if you look like that, I’d hate to see the loser. That have any bearing on why you’re here disturbing my sleep?”

Hans nodded, suddenly weary.

“Yah. Some men will be looking for me. Need different clothes.”

“Ah. That kind of fight, was it?”

“Yah.”

“Fraulein Ursula know about this?” She gave him a sharp look.

“Yah, and she’s in a safe place by now.”

“Well, sit down there on the edge of the bed and I’ll see what I can find. Sorry that I don’t have a proper chair, and all.”

He lurched over to the bed and sat as she began rummaging through bags lined up against a wall.

* * *

The cart pulled up in front of a large house off of Gustavstrasse in the Altstadt of Old Magdeburg.

“Excuse me a moment,” Gotthilf murmured from where he sat by Ursula Metzgerinin. He was rather reluctant to remove her hand from where it had been holding his arm; for stability as the cart moved, he was sure. But it had provided a pleasant sensation, nonetheless.

He hopped to the ground and looked up at his partner. “Give me a moment to make sure someone is up and can get rooms ready.”

Byron looked back at their passengers.

“Right, but you’d better make it quick, because Simon’s already asleep and I doubt she’ll be able to stay awake much longer.”

Gotthilf pulled his key from his pocket as he stepped up to the front door. A moment later he had the lock open and entered the house. An oil lamp provided light in the short entryway.

“Gotthilf, is that you?”

His mother’s voice sounded from the salon to the right, and she appeared in that doorway a moment later holding a candlestick.

“Yes, honored mother.”

She smacked him on his arm. “Funny boy. Did you solve whatever the problem was that your lieutenant called you out for?”

“Almost. Mother, I have two guests that I need you to provide rooms to sleep in tonight.”

She frowned at him.

“Guests? Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier? You know I don’t like these kinds of surprises.”

“I didn’t tell you about it earlier because I didn’t know I needed to guest them until just a few minutes ago. They were part of the problem I was called out for, you see.”

The frown deepened.

“Gotthilf, I don’t think I can have any kind of person associated with the city watch or your
Polizei
affairs in my house.”

“I think I agree with your mother, Gotthilf.”

His father’s deep voice resonated in the entryway, and he looked up to see him standing in the doorway to his office, his sister Margarethe hovering behind him.

Gotthilf took a grip on his temper and tried to sound reasonable.

“It is a young woman not much older than Margarethe, a Fraulein Ursula Metzgerinin. In fact, Margarethe knows her. She is in danger, and may well lose the last of her near kin very soon. With her is a boy, who is a sort of ward of her family. They have done no wrong, but they need safety and protection.”

He saw his mother wavering. Her maternal instinct was quite strong, and the thought of a young one being in distress was sure to evoke her sympathies.

“Well…”

Gotthilf played his last card. “She and the boy are both crippled.”

His mother caved in. “All right. At least for tonight.”

As his mother bustled away to see about getting a room ready, Gotthilf looked to his father, who had an amused look on his face.

“Skillfully done, my son. I foresee a career in politics for you.”

Gotthilf shuddered. “Do not curse me so, please.”

He looked up and stared his father in the eyes. “I was serious, you know, when I used the word guest. I want them treated as my guests. It is important to me.”

His father sobered, and nodded after a moment. “I will see to it.”

“Let me bring them in, before they freeze solid out there.”

Gotthilf hurried out the door and back to the cart. He reached up to Fraulein Ursula.

“Come, let me help you down.”

He lifted her from the cart, settled her on her feet, and waited for her to place her cane and stand. Byron had lifted the sleepy Simon to the ground on the other side, and picked up Ursula’s bag.

“This way,” Gotthilf said. He kept pace with Ursula’s slow steps to and through the door. Once the door closed behind them, he turned to where his parents were standing together.

“Father, Mother, this is Fraulein Ursula Metzgerin, a young woman of good character who is known to Margarethe from catechism class several years ago. And this is her young friend Simon Bayer.

“Fraulein Metzger, this is my father Johann Möritz Hoch and my mother Frau Marie Rebecca Ficklerin. This is our home. Be welcome in it.”

Ursula had a panicked wide-eyed look. His father nodded with his usual reserve, and his mother swept forward to take the young woman under her wing.

“You poor dear, you look half-frozen. Come with me, and we’ll get you settled someplace warm.”

She took Ursula’s free arm, and led the bewildered young woman to the stairs to the upper rooms. Margarethe moved in on the other side, already chattering.

Gotthilf winced at the thought of Ursula dealing with stairs, but there was no help for it. The only rooms available were upstairs, and it definitely wouldn’t be proper for him or Byron to pick her up and carry her.

Byron nudged Gotthilf, and he looked around.

“You’d better take this,” the up-timer muttered as he passed the bag to Gotthilf. “I’ll see you in the morning. Good evening, Herr Hoch.” The elder Hoch waved a hand in response and dismissal.

As the door closed behind Byron, Gotthilf’s father looked down to Simon, who was visibly wavering on his feet.

“And what do we do with this one?”

“Put him in my room for tonight. We’ll do something better tomorrow.”

“Right.” The elder Hoch waved a hand at the stairs. “He’s your guest. See to him.”

“Yes, sir. Come on, Simon.”

The boy somnolently followed him up the stairs. They turned in to Gotthilf’s room. Gotthilf placed the bag on his dressing table.

“We’ll give this back to Fraulein Metzger in the morning. Let me find another blanket or two.”

When Gotthilf came back to the room a few moments later, Simon was sprawled in the chair, head sagging, chin dropped, mouth open. He chuckled, picked the boy up, laid him on his bed, and covered him with a blanket.

Wrapping himself in the other blanket, Gotthilf sat in the chair and propped his feet up on a stool. Yawning, he wondered where Hans Metzger had taken himself.

* * *

“Herr Hans.”

Hans heard the voice, but couldn’t move.

“Herr Hans, wake up.”

A hand poked at his shoulder, which stirred fleeting pains in several different locations in his body. Hans opened gummy eyes. It took him a moment to remember where he was, and to realize that he must have gone to sleep in old Anna’s bed. He started to sit up, only to drop back when pain knifed through him.

“Aaah!”

“That sounded not so good,” Anna remarked from where she stood holding the candle dish. “Ribs?”

“Yah.” Hans grunted as he slowly levered himself up to a sitting position.

“You get that jacket and shirt off,” the old woman said.

It took him a while, as almost every movement of lifting his arms and twisting his torso also twisted the phantom knife in his side. After some doing, however, his dirty, bloody clothing was lying in the floor.

Anna held the candle close to his side.

“Yah, you have some bad bruises there. Broken?”

“Probably.”

The one word response was about all Hans could manage at that moment.

“Bide here and I’ll wrap them.” The old woman shuffled over to another bag, and pulled out some lengthy pieces of cloth. “I knew there was a reason I hadn’t taken these to the paper makers yet.” She turned back to Hans. “Put your hands on top of your head.”

An eternity later, a sweating Hans, light-headed, nauseated and holding his gorge down with some small difficulty, nonetheless felt somewhat better as Frau Anna tied off the last of the cloth bindings that wrapped his torso tightly.

“That has it,” she said as she trimmed off the surplus with a pair of scissors. “Take your hands down now.”

Hans lowered his arms, and essayed a deep breath with caution. “Better,” he admitted. “My thanks. Where did you learn to do that?”

She gave a surprisingly girlish chuckle. “Ah, lad, when you’re married to a fisherman, you pick little tricks like this up along the way. I had to wrap my husband Nikolaus’ ribs more than once before the ague took him off.”