1636: The Devil's Opera

by Eric Flint

Gustav frowned.

  “Has this harmed us?”

  By “us,” Ulrik figured he meant the Vasa dynasty.

  “No. On the contrary, it helped us against the chancellor.” Ulrik gave a mental shrug. Despite his birth, he was committed to the Vasas. He was part of the “us” now.

  “So what is your thought, Ulrik? What is your concern?”

  Ulrik gave a physical shrug this time. “Your real foundation needs to be the people. And that woman,” he pointed back to the clipping again, “at this moment is the voice of the people. Not of the CoC. Not of the Fourth of July Party. The people.”

  * * *

  Simon slipped from his chair and carried Ursula’s things over to where she was sitting. He set her Bible and the embroidery in front of her, followed by the bag with the money.

  “What is that?” Frau Marie nodded toward the bag with raised eyebrows.

  “Her money,” Simon said with a tilt of his head toward Ursula.

  “Money?”

  Frau Marie’s gaze sharpened and swiveled to bear on Ursula, as did Margarethe’s.

  Simon took advantage of their distraction to slip out of the room. He grinned as he passed through the door, but it faded after a moment and he ran to the front door, just in time to see the police cart rolling away at a rate he couldn’t hope to catch.

  Well.

  If the Polizei didn’t want him to be with them, he’d go look for Hans on his own. So he started walking down the street in the same direction the police cart had gone.

  * * *

  Gotthilf stared at the three men; one dead, two moaning in pain. Byron was whistling tunelessly beside him, rocking on his feet.

  The police photographer finished his work, and Dr. Schlegel did a quick preliminary examination of the body.

  “This one died within the last hour or so,” the doctor said. “I won’t know more until I get a look at him in the morgue.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where his assistants were tending to the man with the broken jaw and the other man with the smashed elbow. “Evidence is that they were beaten by someone who knew just what he was doing. One crushed throat and two incapacitating injuries. Remind me not to meet this man.”

  Gotthilf made notes.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Byron said.

  The doctor began directing his assistants to pick up the bodies. Byron turned to the waiting patrolman. “What do you have, Friedrich?”

  The patrolman pointed across the street. “The two shopkeepers there say they saw everything. These three men tried to attack an old guy with a cane, but somehow the guy with the cane hammered them instead. They said it didn’t last very long.”

  Gotthilf saw something on the corpse as it was carried by. He stopped the medical examiner’s assistants and reached over to turn the head of the corpse so he could see the temple area better.

  Dr. Schlegel moved up on the other side of the litter, and Gotthilf felt Byron step up beside him. The doctor reached down and touched the indentation of the skull that had caught Gotthilf’s attention.

  “Blunt force trauma, I believe your up-time doctors would call it, Lieutenant,” the doctor said. “I’ll determine if it is pre- or post-mortem in my examination.”

  The assistants moved on.

  “Metzger?” Gotthilf asked.

  “Almost got to be,” Byron responded. “Like the doc said, this was done by someone who knew what he was doing, and if there is anyone in town who knows how to deal out punishment, it’s Hans Metzger. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  The up-timer turned to the police photographer, who had just finished packing up his gear. “Nathaniel, as soon as you can, get some prints of those men done. I want someone to take them to the warehouse of Andreas Schardius and see if anyone recognizes them.”

  “Right, Lieutenant. I’ll see to it.”

  Byron resumed rocking on his feet, whistling softly. After a little bit of that, Gotthilf said, “So what are you thinking?”

  His partner looked around. “I’m thinking that now we know why Hans Metzger left.”

  Gotthilf raised his eyebrows.

  “He’s bait.”

  Chapter 60

  Hans turned his head to see two of the Schardius warehouse crew ducking under the doorway. He set the walking stick on top of Veit’s counter and straightened to his full height. One of the warehousemen spotted him and nudged the other. They circled around him.

  “Hans?” Veit’s voice held a strong note of concern in it. “What is going on?”

  “You’ll find out in a minute,” Hans murmured as he turned to track the movements of the warehousemen. “I suggest you duck right now, though.”

  The two warehousemen were standing about ten feet apart. They had said nothing since they walked in. That was all right with Hans; he really had nothing to say to them anyway.

  One looked at the other, then back at Hans. He waited, and predictably the two men tried to rush him at the same time. He heard Veit hit the floor behind the counter. At the last split-second Hans stepped to one side. One of the men blundered by him into the board on trestles that Veit used as a counter, knocking it over. Veit yelped as the board landed on him, then yelled in earnest as the assailant landed on top of the board.

  Hans cursed as his walking stick went flying, even as he kicked the other warehouseman in the side of his knee. There was a snap, and the man fell to the floor screaming with his left leg bent in a direction it wasn’t supposed to bend. He immediately forgot Hans and clutched his knee, curses pouring from his lips alternately with moans.

  Hans pivoted to find the other assailant trying to get to his feet. This effort was impeded more than a little because Veit was squirming for all he was worth, yelling at the top of his lungs as he tried to get out from under the counter.

  Wasting no time and no breath, Hans grabbed the assailant by the collar and back of his jacket. With one step and a twist of his powerful body, ignoring the sudden sharp pain in his ribs, Hans swung the man in a semi-circle and launched him into the nearest wall. Then he picked up a nearby chair by its back and slammed it across the head and upper shoulders of the assailant, who dropped instantly to sprawl across a nearby tabletop. From the looks of his head and neck, if he wasn’t dead at that moment, he would be soon.

  The hard oak of the chair was still intact when Hans dropped it and turned back to the other man, who had struggled to sit up and was rocking back and forth holding his knee, tears trickling down his cheeks as he moaned.

  “Wh…why?” the wounded man stammered. “We’re just supposed to take you to the boss.”

  “Sorry, Max,” Hans said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I don’t work for the boss anymore.” He considered the man for a moment, and decided there was no need to inflict any further damage on him. From the looks of that leg, Max wouldn’t be walking for weeks—and would probably walk with a limp thereafter.

  Hans looked around and spotted his walking stick over by the wall. He went over to pick it up, not moving quickly because he was starting to limp a bit himself. Between the fight with the Hannoverian in the ring and the brawls that had followed, he was starting to get worn down. When he turned back to the counter, Veit had managed to get to his feet and was staring at the two downed men with wide eyes. The Chain was not a peaceful place most days, but having one dead man and one half-crippled one on the floor before noon was unusual even for that den.

  Hans tapped Veit on the shoulder, and when he turned handed him a hundred dollar bill.

  “That’s for the damages. Send for the Polizei, and tell the truth. Tell them that these men attacked me, and I fought back in self-defense.”

  “Will…will they believe that?”

  “Ask for Lieutenant Chieske. He’ll believe you.”

  * * *

  Andreas Schardius slipped into a seat in the back of the auditorium. The rehearsal was well under way; toward the end of Act One, from the look of it. Yes. Here came the castrato playing the role of Nimue, dressed in a blue
flowing robe; the orchestra began the flowing ripples and subtle rhythms of Nimue’s duet with Merlin. Schardius tried to focus on the music, but his mind kept straying to other topics, not the least of which was someone who would be onstage soon, Marla Linder.

  And indeed, the final scene of the act opened with Frau Linder stalking onstage in a costume of red and gold, singing a bravura aria against the background of the chorus and orchestra.

  What a magnificent creature she was! He took something from his pocket and sniffed at it. It left him in a curious state of tension and excitement. Heat was building in his loins, and his hands twitched at the thought of holding that long white neck.

  All the while he was aware of the weight in his other pocket.

  * * *

  Ciclope lounged outside the fancy building. Schardius was inside, doing something masterly, Ciclope was sure. He had been watching him since he arrived at his factorage this morning. The man had come in early, had received visitors, then had left his office and strode across the Altstadt to the nearest bridge into the Neustadt, where he then proceeded to the big building, the “opera hall” he heard someone call it.

  Schardius was a big man, and Ciclope had seen people step out of his way and flinch before him. But Ciclope also had a sense that while Schardius might be callous, mean, and cruel, he wasn’t hard. So while he hadn’t decided how to approach the man yet, Ciclope was pretty certain there wouldn’t be any problems when he did approach him.

  * * *

  Before Ursula could react, Frau Fickler had pulled the bag over and opened it up. The older woman’s eyes opened wide. She looked at Ursula, and said, “Child, how much is here?”

  “With what Hans brought to me last night,” Ursula said, voice trembling slightly, “I think somewhere near sixty-five thousand dollars.”

  Now Margarethe’s eyes widened in surprise, but her mother’s narrowed. Frau Fickler’s lips pursed as she thought. “Margarethe,” she said, “go find paper and a pencil. Quickly.”

  As the girl darted out the door, Frau Fickler started pulling smaller purses out of the bag and setting them to one side.

  * * *

  “Yes, I know them,” Ernst Mann, warehouse manager at the Schardius factorage, growled as the pictures were displayed by the Polizei officer. He pointed in turn to the two pictures: “Möritz Flanns and Jochum Wessell. They worked for Master Schardius. What happened?”

  “Well, we’re still investigating that,” the Polizei officer said, “but they both got into fights with another man.”

  “Just one?” Mann asked. He knew what had to have happened, but he also knew he had to act ignorant of the facts.

  “That’s what the witnesses are saying. Do you know what they might have been doing out so early this morning?”

  Ernst steadfastly denied any knowledge of the dead men’s affairs. After a while the officer left, brushing past some more warehousemen coming in.

  “What is he doing here?” Otto Rusche asked.

  “He came to tell us that Möritz and Jochum were killed.”

  “Metzger?”

  Ernst muttered a curse, then spat and said, “Had to be. The stupid fools must have thought they could take him themselves.”

  “Well, we won’t be seeing Hermann, Fritz or Max around for a while, either,” Otto said. “They must have been in the same fights, because they are all in the hospital.”

  At that, curses volleyed through the air for some time before Ernst broke it off. “Will they be back soon?”

  “No.” Otto ticked off finger as he spoke. “Hermann’s elbow is broken. The doctors aren’t sure his arm will heal right. Fritz has a broken jaw. They were able to do something with wire to hold it still, but it’s soup and gruel for him for months. And poor Max’s knee was shattered. He’ll never walk right again.”

  Once again curse volleys echoed from the warehouse walls. It was some time before Ernst finally ran out of breath and paused to think.

  The master had left Metzger up to him. Fortunately, the master wasn’t here at the moment. That gave him a little time to salvage the situation.

  Another warehousemen came in. “Jurgen,” he said to him, “do your cousins still want to work for Master Schardius?”

  “Yah.”

  “Are they hard enough to do what has to be done?”

  Jurgen gave a gap-toothed smile and nodded with vigor.

  “Good. Go get them.” He looked around the room at his remaining men. “We will take care of Metzger. The master said alive or dead. Dead is easier.”

  Low voices cursed in agreement.

  * * *

  “So this Schardius is the main guy you’ve been investigating all along?” Captain Reilly asked, looking across the table at his top two detectives.

  “Yes,” Gotthilf answered, seconded by Byron’s nod. “We’ve been quietly trying to investigate rumors since December, but until we found this Metzger person, we weren’t having any luck finding anyone who would admit to knowing anything.”

  “And last night he decided to talk to you?” The captain sounded skeptical.

  “Yah,” Gotthilf said. “Metzger had one of his fights out at the new arena last night, and something happened there that caused him to break with Schardius.”

  “We might be able to get more details about that from Todd Pierpoint, or this kid Simon that hangs around Metzger a lot,” Byron interjected.

  The captain nodded, and looked back at Gotthilf, making a “get on with it” motion with his hand.

  “Metzger asked us for protection for his sister and the boy Simon, told us enough that we can justify questioning Schardius and his associates, then disappeared.”

  “Disappeared.” Captain Reilly sat up straight at that word. “He’s not going to show up in the river, is he?” The captain’s frown made an appearance.

  Byron shrugged. “Maybe. Schardius might want that to happen, but Metzger is one tough dude. Of all these ‘hard men’ in Magdeburg, he is without a doubt the hardest. They might take him down, but I promise you there will be more bodies in the street than his if they do.”

  “For all that he’s apparently the best around at professional fighting, Metzger seems to be a relatively nice guy,” Gotthilf offered. “But the one thing we hear from all our sources is that he’s fanatical about protecting and providing for his sister, Fraulein Ursula Metzgerinin. Our guess is that he’s gone out to try and draw the attentions of those men who might otherwise be asking her where the money is.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars, you said?” the captain asked.

  “That’s what we were told,” Gotthilf replied.

  “That’s a lot of money.”

  “And that’s why we think Schardius is sending guys after it. That’s enough even for him to notice the loss.”

  “That, and the loss of face,” Byron added. “Sounds like some of those stories out of Pittsburgh, boss.”

  Captain Reilly nodded slowly, tapping his fingertips on the table while he thought. The fingers stilled, and he looked directly at them.

  “Right. Don’t go after Schardius yet. You’re going to have to brief Mayor Gericke about this. We’ll need his approval as mayor and magistrate before you go after one of the leading lights of the city.”

  The captain stood. “Leave word of your whereabouts at the central desk at all times. I’ll call you in as soon as I have confirmed an appointment with the mayor.”

  * * *

  Frau Fickler finished adding the numbers up, and looked at the stacks of coins and bills on the table in front of them.

  “That makes sixty-three thousand nine hundred fifty dollars, plus another forty-nine Groschen and one hundred ninety-seven pfennigs.”

  The three women, older and younger alike, sat and stared at what amounted to a small fortune. Frau Fickler had teased the story out of Ursula about Hans’ pugilistic career, so there was no question about where it came from or who it belonged to. What to do with it, however, placed them in a definite quandary.
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br />   “Does Gotthilf know about this?” Frau Fickler asked.

  “I do not think so,” Ursula replied in a low voice. “Or at least, not how much is there.”

  Frau Fickler pondered for a moment. She was beginning to like the soft-spoken Metzger girl. She had a pleasant manner about her. The older woman had also wormed out of the girl the fact that she did fine embroidery, which meant that the girl wasn’t afraid to work. That also spoke well of her.

  The fact that the Fraulein had such wealth also elevated her in Frau Fickler’s eyes. She pondered that wealth for a moment, then stirred.

  “Margarethe, go bring your father here.”

  * * *

  Simon was starting to get worried. He’d been almost every place he could think of looking for Hans, and there was no sign of him.

  He had to be here somewhere.

  Had to be.

  * * *

  Gotthilf turned around when he heard the report. “Two more?” he asked.

  “Yep,” Byron replied as he scanned the patrolman’s notes.

  “Metzger?”

  “Definitely,” Byron said. “According to Veit, the owner and barman of the Chain, that is.”

  “Let me guess: self-defense.”

  Byron pointed a finger at him. “You got it. According to Veit, they attacked Metzger first without a warning or an argument or anything.”

  Gotthilf nodded. “So if he’s chosen to be bait, it sounds like he’s doing a good job of it.”

  “Yep. Score: Bait, five; Hunters, zero.”

  “Of course,” Gotthilf finished, “the Hunters only need to score once to win.”

  “Point,” Byron said with a wry twist to his mouth. “So let’s go see if we can find the bait ourselves before that happens.”

  “And we’d best send word to Schardius and his men that it might be prudent to stay out of sight,” Gotthilf observed.

  “Point,” Byron said after a moment. “Send Peltzer to pass them the word.”

  Chapter 61

  Demetrious the seeker, as he thought of himself, faded back against the city wall buttress. From there he could see the front of the new opera hall. He could also see where the one-eyed man was standing near the front of the Royal Academy of Music.