Marshall frowned. "I'm rather sure, that for a debt of two Thaler, no judge would throw him into debtor's prison.
"But you know what? I'll pay these two Thaler, and since you seem to be a reasonable man, I'm sure you'll want to do business with us. We need to buy food, and a mule or donkey, so the boy won't slow us down."
Beyond a doubt, Sancho, we must have already reached the second region of the air, where the hail and snow are generated; the thunder, the lightning, and the thunderbolts are engendered in the third region.
Waidbauerhof, Bu?leben, near Erfurt
The same afternoon
Marshall sat down on a bench with young Andreas Becker. It seemed that the boy and der Waidbauer, the woad farmer, were on rather good terms, once the debt was paid.
"So tell me, Andreas, what's this about 'arriving nearly naked'?"
"I think I'll have to start a little earlier, sir. When the Swedes came into Erfurt after the battle of Breitenfeld-"
"That was last September?" Marshall interrupted.
"Yes, sir. September 30th-or 20th by the Protestants' calendar-they entered the city. My papa was very furious when he heard that. He was a member of the city council and had always been against paying so much money to the Imperials to leave Erfurt in peace.
"But now he feared that the Lutheran 'Wettin Johanns' as he called them would use the opportunity to seize Erfurt from His Excellence the High Reverence in spite of the peace treaty of 1530.
"So he left home to 'stop these crazy barbarians' he said. And he never returned." The boy's voice got muffled by his tears.
People who had noticed the event called it an appalling accident. Jakob Becker had really tried to stop the Swedes.
He was so furious; he stepped in the way of Wilhelm of Saxe-Weimar's horse, who had led the marching in to the city hall to accept the mayor's surrender. He called the Wettin dukes in particular, and all Protestants and Swedes at large many names that the witnesses didn't want to repeat. Wilhelm only shook his head, Becker was shoved aside and the Swedes moved on.
But he was still shouting, and suddenly one of the cavalry horses shied, kicked out and hit him exactly in the chest. The people said he was dead before he fell to earth. A Swedish medic even tried to help him with no success.
"When our neighbors, who had been witnesses, came to our home on the bridge-"
"Bridge?" Marshall interrupted the boy.
"He's referring to the Kramerbrucke-the merchants' bridge, sir," Melchior answered with his tour-guide voice. "It was built three hundred years ago with houses on both sides of the street, but it existed as a market place two centuries earlier."
"And we had our own house," this was the first time the boy showed some eagerness. "Mama worked as seamstress downstairs, and we all slept upstairs. And we even had-how do you Americans call it? — a water closet."
"Ja," Melchior commented. "A hole in the floor, where the shit can drop directly into the Gera. And what about the winter?" He shuddered. The boy laughed.
"Okay," Marshall sent an approving gaze to Melchior, but then turned back to Andreas. "Then what happened?"
The boy took a deep breath. "When they came and told what had happened, Mama panicked. She said we should flee to her relatives in Techstedt or Pechstedt-I had never heard of them and I could not exactly understand the name of the village. And we had to run now.
"She took Maria by her hand and left the house. I had to run after them. We left the city and walked over the fields. Mama didn't want to use a road.
"After an hour or so a thunderstorm was coming up. Black clouds towered higher and higher and then it started pouring water. The soil turned into mud, but still we walked on and on.
"And then we reached the Linderbach. I didn't know that the creek was called that name then. And I wouldn't have recognized it, had we been there before. It was a black and raging current. No bridge; no chance to cross."
The boy stopped, apparently overwhelmed from the pictures in his memory. Then his voice got completely flat.
"But Mama tried. She slipped. She fell. Her head hit a boulder, and then she disappeared in the water. Maria wanted to run after her, and I could barely hold her. Then I took her in my arms; and we cowered down and cried together until the rainstorm ended.
"And then we walked on. We had lost our shoes in the mud. We had torn our clothes. When we reached the farm, we collapsed in the yard." Andreas' voice was choking.
Then he straightened. "Der Waidbauer was very nice to us. But he told us that he had nothing himself and he could not feed two more mouths easily.
"He didn't know either Techstedt or Pechstedt, and there are two villages called Bechstedt, and there is Eichstedt, and I even don't know the name of Mama's relatives. So if we wanted to stay with him, we both had to work for food and lodging and the shoes and clothes he bought for us.
"He asked for Mama downstream, but on that day the Linderbach not only killed her, but also made the bridge on the road to Weimar collapse. People thought her body had probably been washed all the way down into the Unstrut.
"So we settled down here. I worked in the stable and on the fields, and Maria sewed and mended and embroidered. Until the day the outlaws appeared."
"'Outlaws'?" Marshall asked quizzically. "You mean like 'Robin Hood and his Merry Men,' that kind of outlaws? And you called this 'a boring part of Germany,' Melchior."
Melchior shrugged. "Shit happens, sir. Former Imperial mercenaries, perhaps."
"No, Herr Nehring," the boy said. "They are real bandits, criminals. At least their chief. He visited my father once, some years ago. At that time his name was Wilhelm Schontal."
Papa had told him that the man was a Catholic from Hanau, and was wanted for murder there, for killing a Calvinist tax collector.
He swore on the Bible that it had been in self-defense, and that there was a conspiracy going on against pious Catholics. So the auxiliary bishop of Erfurt granted him asylum.
That lasted until the day when the Kanonikus of St. Mary's was found dead and some very nice pieces of the church treasury had disappeared along with Wilhelm. And nobody heard of him afterwards.
"But this spring the farmers talk about a Catholic 'Robin Hood,' who robs the wealthy Lutheran merchants on the High Road to Leipzig, and gives their money to the poor. Exactly as told in the old ballads."
"Ha!" shouted Marshall. "You're joking."
"No, sir. They don't make presents, but they pay generously for food and other supplies they buy from the farmers. And their captain uses the name Guillaume de Beauvallee."
Melchior's lips moved, when he repeated the name. "That's 'Wilhelm Schontal' translated into French!"
"Yes, Herr Nehring. That's what I thought, too. And I told the woad farmer about what that man had done in Erfurt. But he didn't believe me.
"And last week the outlaws appeared here."
Andreas had managed to hide in the stable when they turned up, but Maria unsuspectingly left the farmhouse, and froze when she saw the captain of this troop. She had been only nine years old when Schontal had visited Jakob Becker and his family in his house. But she obviously remembered that short, sturdy man with his enormous black mustachio, who had frightened her the first time she had seen him.
The next day Maria was missing. Andreas was sure that Schontal had something to do with it, but he couldn't convince the woad farmer. The farmer was adamant that Maria certainly had run away to find her mother.
"So I had no choice, I had to find her. But my search for her ended soon afterwards in the thicket, where the woad farmer found me."
A field near Erfurt
Some days later
"Guten Morgen, meine Herren," Melchior greeted the peasants who were harvesting flax in a field.
Not being accustomed to be addressed so courteously, the men stopped working, straightened and examined the scenario before them: A chubby young man with glasses on a mule, a tall, haggard, oddly-dressed man behind him on a large horse, and the obvious
ly young stable hand on another mule holding the reins of a third mule.
"I am the guide for my master, Mister Marshall of Ambler, Lord of America, on his grand tour through Europe. He has heard that a distinguished buccaneer by name of Guillaume de Beauvallee has made his camp somewhere around here, and he-" At this point Melchior showed a grimace of resignation and disgust, "-wants to make his acquaintance.
"Are you, o honorable rural workers, by any chance able to fulfill his desire, and tell us the location of this encampment? An appropriate gratification will be awarded."
The men looked at each other, obviously trying to make a sense from this flood of pretentious words. Then one after another, each shook his head.
Marshall and Melchior had carefully devised this scene to reveal the hideout of Schontal and his gang. Melchior had declared that he was not completely convinced that these bandits had indeed abducted Maria. Marshall, however, had convinced him that he would not give up until he knew the facts.
Either nobody knew, or nobody dared to tell.
****
Shortly after the three continued on their way, Marshall heard a shout from behind. One of the peasants they passed was running after them. They stopped and turned.
"I know it," the man gasped. "How much?"
He obviously didn't want to share his knowledge and the reward with the other men.
"One Groschen," Melchior said.
"One Thaler," the man replied.
"Melchior," the arrogant voice of Marshall came from behind. "Don't bargain. But we'll return, if the information turns out to be wrong."
"Yess, mein Lord," Melchior answered and looked questioningly in the man's eyes.
"Mein Lord," the man echoed. "I will not betray you, I don't dare to."
The old windmill near the road between Bechstedt and Isseroda was the bandits' hideout. The Imperials had killed its owner two years before, and since then apparently nobody had dared to reopen the mill because the old miller’s ghost still dwelled there.
Yeah, a haunted mill, Marshall thought, always a good pretext to keep the superstitious natives at distance.
Schontal and his gang had taken possession of the mill, and used it as their headquarters. It was far enough from the High Road to be hidden from view, but near enough to start their raids from here.
When Melchior heard this, he uttered the mysterious words "So we will have to fight the windmills, too."
Marshall looked at him, and decided not to pursue the odd comment, except to say: "We will possibly fight at the windmill, but by then we better have a good plan to emerge unscathed."
Either I am mistaken, or this is going to be the most famous adventure that has ever been seen.
Windmill at the road from Bechstedt to Isseroda
Near Weimar, New United States, CPE
Next morning
Maria Becker left the windmill where the Hessian murderer and his cronies kept their supplies. With all the power of her twelve-year-old muscles, she dragged a sack of flour down the ramp. The thugs wanted bread for breakfast, so she had to start the dough now.
Suddenly she saw a man on a horse. A tall, haggard man, wearing a strange kind of suit. He had something like a lance in his right hand, and a hat with a big brim on his head. The bandits had apparently noticed him, too. Schontal had already gotten up and now went to meet the strange man, holding a pistol casually in his hand.
Marshall slowly approached the windmill on his horse. The bandits were sitting at a campfire, where something was cooking in a pot. Their horses were tied to some stakes in a meadow nearby.
Most of their guns could be seen strapped to their saddles some yards away, but some of the men nevertheless had wheel lock pistols and sabers lying close at hand.
When they noticed Marshall, they grabbed their weapons. A short, sturdy man with an enormous black mustachio and a pistol in his hand rose and took several steps forward.
Noticing that Marshall was obviously unarmed apart from the ranging pole he had removed from its sheath and now was holding upright like a lance, he started to smile. It was a sneering, arrogant grin.
He bowed deeply before Marshall. "Guillaume de Beauvallee, a votre service," he said, but the following words gave away his thick Hessian dialect. "Whom do I have the honor to meet on this wonderful morning?"
"I'm Marshall Ambler, and I've come-" He pointed to the young girl, who had just left the windmill, and who hauled a large sack. "-to retrieve your captive."
"Oh, yes." The bandit's grin was now only sardonic. "You, and which army?" He waved about with his pistol. His cronies laughed joyfully.
"Mr. Bill Bo-valley, I don't need an army, as long as I have my magical instruments with me." He lowered the ranging pole; its point was still several yards away from Schontal, but now pointing to his forehead. "So please drop all your guns and make your way back into whatever rat-hole you have crawled out of."
"Oh, so you are one of these mythical 'Americains.'" He lifted his pistol and carefully aimed at Marshall's upper body. "But do you know what I think? I think-"
Nobody would ever learn what thoughts really crossed his mind at that moment. A muffled crack split the quietness of the morning, and a red flower bloomed on Schontal's forehead.
The fact that the back of his head blew away at the same time added to the absurdity of the event. Marshall could still see a kind of puzzlement in his eyes, when Schontal slowly fell on his back. The same puzzlement now showed on the faces of his cronies.
Marshall changed the aim of his pole to the next of the bandits, who had not yet brought his pistol to the ready. "Do I have to repeat this lesson or will you drop your weapons and run?"
Suddenly the expressions on the bandits' face changed from puzzlement to horror. All of them dropped their pistols and sabers and began to flee.
Melchior rose from behind the little mound where he had hidden before sunrise. It was only fifty yards from Marshall's actual position, and though Melchior had practiced with the up-time hunting rifle only for a week, he had developed a very good aim, at least at short distances.
He held the gun still, ready to react if one of the bandits changed his mind and returned. But they still were running as if pursued by a dragon.
When they had disappeared behind the next grove, Marshall whistled, and Andreas appeared with the mules. As soon as the boy saw his sister, he jumped off his mount and ran to hug her. The girl was still stunned by the bloody dreadful event, which had happened before her eyes. But when her brother reached her, she managed a little smile.
"Come on," Marshall said. "We don't know how long they need to regain composure and return here. So let's gather their belongings and then make like a tree and leave."
Then, smiling at the girl he said, "Maria, do you think you can ride a mule? Or do you want to ride with me?"
Ask a girl whether she wants to ride on a horse, in Ancient Egypt, Rome, Germany or West Virginia, and the reply is always the same.
Maria extended both arms, and Marshall lifted her on his horse's back before his saddle.
Melchior and Andreas gathered the horses and saddles of the bandits, and all together started to Weimar.
Weimar
Some days later
When all the bureaucratic formalities had been completed, and the children sent to Grantville with a representative of the duke of Saxe-Eisenach, Marshall and Melchior again started into the direction of Erfurt.
"Perhaps," Marshall said thoughtfully, "we'll find more adventures in this 'boring' county of yours."
"El ingenioso hidalgo," Melchior muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Oh, never, surely, was there knight
So served by hand of dame,
As served was he, Don Quixote hight,
When from his town he came;
With maidens waiting on himself,
Princesses on his hack
Chapter 8: On the Right Track
Grantville, New United States<
br />
April 1633
The Orient Express came into Penn Station and stopped at platform seven, just when the Hiawatha, hauled by a streamlined class A, was departing from platform ten. The passengers would have been very unhappy for not catching the connecting train south, but fortunately all this happened only on Marshall Ambler's large model railroad.
The dignitaries from the Thuringian towns stood around Marshall with gaping mouths. They had heard that the up-timer was about to give a "presentation on rail operations," but this was not in the least what they had expected, if they had expected anything.
But certainly they hadn't expected the giant table with many trains moving simultaneously, starting and stopping as if by magic. Steam trains steaming, passenger coaches lit, signals changing colors.
"And this," Hieronymus Bruckner, the Ratsmeister of Erfurt cleared his throat. "And all this is a picture of up-time reality?"
"All things considered, yes," Marshall answered. "Much compressed in space and time, of course. Model trains try to show everything on the available space, what normally happens hundreds of miles apart. And I have locomotives from eras that are over one hundred years apart."
"Can I," Andreas Cotta, the Burgermeister of Eisenach, interjected, "see one of these 'locomotives' close up?"
"Of course." Marshall pushed some buttons, and all trains came to a halt. He seized the streamlined Hudson that had drawn the Twentieth Century Limited and handed it to Cotta.
The man carefully took it in one hand. "It's not hot."
"Yes, all the 'steam' engines are driven by electric power on the model railroad."
"But," Cotta wondered, "They were steaming."
Marshall laughed. "That's a simple trick. They burn drops of oil to produce some smoke. When you wait for ten minutes, they'll all stop smoking but still move."
Cotta pointed at the large drivers of the steam locomotive and then to one of the tiny figures on the platform. "Are these wheels really as big as a man?"
Grantville Gazette 45 gg-45 Page 12
