Ring of Fire IV

by Eric Flint

  Thomas thought he was going to swallow his own teeth in frustration. “And then, the next day? The sweet roll?”

  Ursula’s eyes got watery. “Gisela was gone, and that old witch Mathilde had given the sweet roll to the chickens. And she wouldn’t tell me why she hadn’t packed it for Gisela’s trip, or who had taken her to Nuremburg. And Herr Schoenfeld fired me. And Mistress Anna was sick in bed. And they took Mathilde in to live with them. The witch.” Ursula’s full, quivering lip threatened the onset of full-blown weeping.

  Larry’s voice was patient. “And you haven’t heard from Gisela? You seem to have been very close.”

  “Oh, we were. We were. She liked me much more than that—”

  “But you haven’t heard from her?”

  “No. How could I? She’s only three, and if they have news of her, they don’t tell me. Which is very hurtful. I loved her like she was my own—”

  Thomas saw the lower lip become unsteady again, jumped in. “And you say Frau Schoenfeld was suddenly ill?”

  “Yes.” Ursula paused, frowned. “Although—” And then she thought.

  Unwilling to disrupt this rare event, North and Quinn waited.

  “Although,” repeated Ursula with a great frown after what seemed like the world’s longest ten-count, “Frau Schoenfeld took no medicines that I saw, and Mathilde was the only one allowed in her rooms, other than Herr Schoenfeld. Who was there all day. But he never sent for the doctor. But I was scared that Mistress Anna was very sick indeed. That maybe her new pregnancy was putting her in danger.”

  “Why did you think that?”

  “Well, because her family came to the house for a long time, that day. And it was such a busy day, too. All the Swiss children had arrived, and some were already being sent out into the fields and others were being sent further north, all the way to Ulm. And even so, Mistress Anna’s brothers came, even the oldest one—despite all the work he had to do with the children.”

  “He works in the fields with the children?”

  Ursula scowled at Thomas’ unthinkable stupidity. “No: he is in charge of recording their contracts at the Rathaus. Anna is the sister of Hans Kaspar Funk. Didn’t you know?”

  Larry and Thomas looked at each other a long time before Thomas said. “No, we didn’t. And did anything else unusual happen that day?”

  “No. But the next day, the other girls went to school also. No one saw them leave, either. And their families fired most of their servants too.”

  Thomas managed not to look over at Larry again. “And what two girls were those?”

  “Liesel Lay and Agatha von Pflummern. But with all those Swiss children running around, settling into their jobs in town, or traveling further north or east, it’s no surprise no one remembers seeing them leave. They are pretty much the same age as the ones who were arriving. It was all very confusing, that day.” Ursula paused, looked puzzled. “What was I saying? Was there something else you need me to tell you about Gisela?”

  Larry rose, extended his hand. “No, Fräulein Bodenmüller. You have told us everything we need to know.”

  * * *

  Thomas and Larry walked in silence. They hadn’t discussed a destination upon leaving the bloodstained backroom of the butcher’s, but of one mind, they seemed to be heading for the Grüner Baum. At least that’s where Thomas hoped they were heading.

  Larry spoke up as they turned into the narrow street which led to the tavern. “We’ve been looking at this all wrong. We’ve been looking for a business angle, for some in-town cartel that had something to gain by undermining the aerodrome deal.”

  Thomas nodded. “But this doesn’t smell like that. It smells more like—”

  “Extortion.”

  “Yes,” Thomas agreed, suddenly completely uninterested in a drink. “Extortion.”

  * * *

  Sitting by the window looking out on the small lane that led around behind the Grüner Baum to various victualers, Thomas and Quinn nursed almost untouched beers. “What now?” the Englishman wondered aloud. “Try to get in to see the mothers of the other two children?”

  Thomas himself knew it was a futile ploy, but nodded in agreement with Quinn’s response. “We won’t get access there, either. According to Ursula, it sounds as if they’ve also gone to a ‘closed house’ servant model.”

  Thomas pushed his beer back and forth. “Reducing all routine contacts with the outside world. All in order to conceal whatever happened to their children.”

  “Which, judging from Mathilde’s extreme protectiveness, still has Anna Funk in a state of depression.”

  “Probably all of them. I hadn’t thought anything of it before now, but I’ve overheard mention that this was an ‘off’ social season among the high and mighty.” Thomas took a sip; the beer he had been enjoying so much during the past two days had a suddenly sour taste to it. “Apparently, the top levels of government aren’t in the mood for celebration. Both Burgermeisters and one of the inner council are too busy trying to act like nothing is wrong.”

  Quinn looked around at the patrons of the Grüner Baum. “You think anyone else knows something’s wrong?”

  Thomas considered. “Probably not yet, because it hasn’t been going on long enough. Whatever happened occurred within the last two months, if Gisela’s sudden departure for ‘school in Nuremburg’ marks the beginning of the change. But if it goes on much longer—well, a big secret is hard to keep in a small town.”

  Quinn nodded out the window. “I wonder if any of them could shed some new light on it.” Thomas turned, saw Schoenfeld approaching, slightly faster than a donkey cart being led by—if he wasn’t mistaken—a pair of genuine soldiers. One of the them was wearing a Swedish-style helmet.

  Schoenfeld’s one good eye must have been quite good indeed: he spotted Larry and Thomas staring at him, waved a brief hello, and accelerated his approach to the Grüner Baum.

  “Walking like a man with a mission,” commented Quinn.

  Thomas nodded as the artist entered and came directly toward their table. “Meine Herren, may I join you?”

  “We were hoping you would, Herr Schoenfeld,” replied Thomas, who was happiest being generous with other peoples’ money. “A drink?”

  “No, thank you. No time for that.” He sat and leaned forward briskly; all business, he seemed to forget that one of his hands was withered. “I have been encountering some puzzling circumstances, which may or may not bear upon the frustrations you have been experiencing as well.”

  “Oh?” asked Larry mildly.

  “Yes. My sister-in-law Anna, usually so cheery, has been quite depressed. According to those who know her, it has been going on for some time now. They fear for her coming child. But at my other brother’s house—Hans Jakob, who is also a member of the Rat—I am now expressly forbidden to speak of it. And I had only asked if it might help to bring little Gisela back for a visit with her mother: by all accounts, they were inseparable, a smile from one being sure of receiving a like return from the other.”

  Larry nodded. “And that was when you were told not to speak of Gisela any more.”

  “Exactly. Or of Anna’s depression.” Schoenfeld looked from one to the other. “And neither of you are surprised at this. In the least.”

  Thomas was wondering how best to respond to that frank observation without giving too much away when the door banged open and the two garrison soldiers entered. Their swagger and bold sweeping glance about the room stopped when it fell upon Thomas and Quinn. Suddenly circumspect, they made their way to the bar and ordered.

  Schoenfeld kept to the topic. “You have encountered something similar. You have suspicions.”

  Thomas kept his eyes on the soldiers, watched the exchange at the bar. “Suspicions, yes. But no answers.”

  “What else have you learned?”

  Larry seemed to gauge Schoenfeld carefully. “That Gisela isn’t the only little girl who was sent to school suddenly, just before the Rat decided to cancel the aerod
rome deal. It seems that the daughters of Hanss Lay and Ignaz von Pflummern also departed for Nuremburg without anyone noticing.”

  Schoenfeld banged his good hand on the table. “I knew it!” he announced.

  “Knew what?”

  “That there was something odd about this early schooling nonsense. Gisela is a little strip of a girl, barely three. So how would she get to Nuremburg without special arrangements being made long beforehand? It is not as if Biberach has one of your marvelous trains running to and from Nuremburg, after all. Even so, someone from the family would travel with her. And when I offered to bring a letter to her, my younger brother seemed ready to throttle me.”

  Quinn leaned forward. “You are traveling to Nuremburg? Why?”

  Schoenfeld actually blushed. “Since I was not to become an artist in Italy, then perhaps in Germany, in Grantville, maybe in the Netherlands…”

  Quinn smiled. “Perhaps so. But at least travel with me, when you go: I would not like to see you hazard the Jakobsweg on your own. And travel is always more pleasant with company, no?”

  It was Thomas who answered. “And it is always far more pleasant to travel with well-funded friends.”

  Quinn quirked a sour smile. “You mean, like me?”

  “Actually, right now, I meant like them.” Thomas pointed surreptitiously at the backs of the two soldiers at the bar.

  Larry frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “While you’ve been discussing disappearing daughters with Herr Schoenfeld, I’ve been watching those two. Who have already knocked back two of the house’s finest. And are now chasing it down with a double helping of schnapps, each. And they paid full price. For all of it.”

  Quinn’s frown went away, replaced by a carefully neutral expression. “Hmm. Not such a poor, threadbare garrison after all.”

  “No, indeed. And look at their gear.”

  Quinn did. “All new. Local manufacture, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “You’re not,” put in Schoenfeld. “I know the work of our weavers and tanners, their marks, their cuts and patterns. That’s their work all right. Of course, they’d have had plenty of time to purchase some, by now. From what my brothers tell me, they’re in town twice a week to pick up provisions.”

  Quinn turned, saw where the soldiers had left the wagon, which was now being loaded—none too eagerly—by a handful of the nearby victualers. “But why get their goods here? Why not in the market?”

  Schoenfeld shrugged. “My brothers tell me that the Rat is worried that there could be a riot. Biberach has not had it so bad as other towns, but food is still dear. If the townspeople had to routinely watch soldiers who do nothing but sit on their hands six miles away, getting food for free—”

  “I see their point,” allowed Quinn, “but still, it’s peculiar.”

  Schoenfeld shrugged. “Perhaps not, particularly given how much the people fear any contact with the abbey. So, what they don’t see doesn’t stir up their anger or fear. That’s not even one of our town’s wagons out there: that came from the abbey. And the soldiers come with it, to drive it back and forth.”

  Quinn rubbed his chin meditatively; he glanced at Thomas. “Because no one from town wants to get anywhere near the abbey, of course.”

  “Of course,” agreed Thomas. Yes, it’s odd how distant and socially isolated the garrison is and yet how well-heeled its individual soldiers seem to be.

  “And look who’s here to lend a hand.”

  Thomas looked up, followed Quinn’s eyes out the window: Hanss Lay had arrived, conferring with the victualers who were loading the wagon. North smiled. “I wasn’t aware Burgermeisters made a special point of counting out the beans and bacon for their garrisons. Perhaps a few questions are in order—”

  But Schoenfeld was shaking his head. “Nein, alles ist Ordnung—it is correct that he does this. He is also the Stadtrechner.”

  “The what?”

  “You would say…cashier? No, more like your word ‘purser.’”

  “So,” said Larry with a mirthless smile. “Hanss Lay handles Biberach’s accounts payable.”

  “Well, of course he does,” agreed Thomas with a similar smile.

  Schoenfeld looked from one to the other again. “What are you saying? What do you suspect?”

  Larry leaned his chin in his hand and looked out the window. “Why speculate when we might see for ourselves?”

  The soldiers at the bar tossed back the last of their schnapps and, leaving more coin than was strictly necessary, strode outside. Thomas suddenly rediscovered his taste for the Grüner Baum’s fine beer as he turned to watch the end of the loading.

  As the last space in the wagon’s bed was filled—with improbably choice foods, drink, and some outright frippery—an assistant appeared beside Burgermeister Lay bearing a weighty box from which the ends of loaves and corked bottles protruded.

  Quinn grinned. “That’s a mighty heavy meal, he’s carrying there.”

  Thomas nodded. “Evidently Prum’s men are used to a very, very rich diet.”

  The soldiers appeared, exchanging curt nods with Lay, but no words. Thomas cheated the shutters open a little wider and strained to catch any conversation that might arise.

  None did. The soldiers walked around the wagon slowly, inspecting its contents. When they were done, they stood at the front, expectantly.

  Lay and his assistant approached. The Burgermeister nodded crisply at the box the smaller man was carrying. “Speiserest,” Lay almost spat at the soldiers.

  One of whom nodded, and jerked his head at the wagon’s seat.

  “‘Leftovers?’” translated Schoenfeld quizzically.

  As the box hit the seat, Thomas clearly heard the faint jingle of coins. Many, many coins.

  “Leftovers,” confirmed Thomas. “Or, to be more precise, it is what is left over from Captain Prum’s steady depletion of your treasury.”

  * * *

  It took a few moments of whispered explanations to make matters clear to the initially bewildered, and then outraged, Schoenfeld. “So you believe that Prum and his men kidnapped all three girls?”

  Quinn nodded. “Let’s add it up. Lay just sent a secret payment to a handful of men who are holed up in a fortlike building that no one goes near. His daughter is one of the three missing. The other two are also children of the highest ranking men in your Rat. And with Lay as the Stadtrechner, they could manage this all from the top without anyone under them being any wiser.”

  “But eventually it would come out. And why would Prum not simply extort the families themselves?”

  Thomas shrugged. “Probably because Prum’s a right greedy bastard. He knows the real money in this town is not in the hands of any one of its citizens: it’s in the hands of the Rat. The taxes and tariffs. Besides, this way, he can shift from extorting cash to goods however and whenever he likes. He’s a clever parasite: he can feed from a number of sources, for as long as this lasts.”

  “But then why would he pressure the Rat to reverse its decision about the aerodrome? It means less income for the town, and Prum must have anticipated that it would bring an inquiry from Grantville.”

  Quinn frowned. “Well, to start with, an inquiry is a whole lot less troublesome than having us set up business on your doorstep. As long as traffic through Biberach is moderate and overwhelmingly local, Prum can probably control the situation. But if Biberach became a more dynamic hub of commerce, that would change: more people would be trying to make deals, ask questions.

  “As far as income increase from the aerodrome goes, I don’t think Prum plans to be around long enough to really see that. How long can he realistically hold on to those girls? How long before people start becoming less fearful of the abbey and traveling out there again, or the nuns come back to take possession? My guess is that he’s not planning on being here come Christmas, or even first harvest. So if he can delay us from setting up the aerodrome for just half a year, he’ll have achieved everything he intended to.” />
  “Which is?”

  “What else?” said Thomas, draining the last of his beer. “To bleed your treasury and merchants dry, while also keeping his wealth as portable as possible.”

  “And the girls?”

  Thomas glanced at Quinn, who had a hard look on his face. “I doubt that Prum has a strong taste for needless killing. On the other hand, I also doubt that he would hesitate to do so if it suited his ends—or was simply more convenient.” Which it almost certainly would be, given the situation.

  Schoenfeld was pale. “I hadn’t meant that,” he said. Thomas thought the smaller man might be on the verge of vomiting. “I meant, how did Prum get them in the first place?”

  Quinn started thumbing a stream of coins onto the table. “I imagine they used the chaos of the arrival of the Swiss child laborers to cover their actions. Lots of people running around with kids, not all of whom were happy, I’m sure. They probably got Gisela first, because the house was the smallest and had only two servants. A night time grab, probably. It wouldn’t have been hard to plan it out. Prum and his men had plenty of lead time to know who held what positions in the Rat, where everyone lived, how many kids they had, what age, and all the rest. And once they had one child, they probably went to Lay’s house under the guise of reporting on their progress in ‘locating’ Gisela. And when they left his house, they had his daughter. And probably had him in tow as well, to get access to von Pflummern’s house: a frantic knock on the door in the middle of the night, a familiar face—and they went in right behind. And then they had the daughters of both the Catholic and Lutheran Burgermeisters.” Quinn stood. “Let’s go.”

  “What? Go where?”

  Thomas was making sure that the straps and flaps that secured and hid his various weapons were untangled and ready for fast access. “Wherever Prum’s wagon goes. But much further behind.”

  “But won’t we lose them, then?”

  “No,” smiled Quinn, “we won’t. Thomas, how many binoculars in your unit?”

  “Two, counting my own. But why ask me? You have one of your own. And unless I’m much mistaken, that Ruger bolt-action you’ve tried to conceal from me looks to have a scope.”