Grantville Gazette, Volume 68

by Bjorn Hasseler

  And so it was, in the third week of April, that Johann delivered himself to the front steps of the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls late in the Wednesday afternoon. He looked up at the front of the elaborate townhouse that currently housed the school, plus provided rooms for some of the teachers, and shook his head. Such grandeur, compared to the rooming house he was living in; for that matter, compared to the house in Wechmar he had spent most of his childhood in.

  He shrugged, opened the door, and entered. As it happened, Lady Beth Haygood was moving down the hallway toward him, papers in hand.

  "Herr Bach," she said in surprise. "Are you here to see me?"

  "No, Frau Haygood," he said. "At least, not this time." They met fairly frequently to review the progress of the organ construction, so it was an easy assumption to make. "Actually, I would like to have a few words with Fräulein Matowski. Is…does…would she have time to see me now?"

  Lady Beth looked at the up-time watch on her arm and smiled. "The teaching day is about over. She should be free in a few minutes. I'll send a note up to her room to tell her you're waiting on her. Why don't you have a seat in the parlor?" She gestured to a wide doorway behind Johann.

  He took her advice and entered the parlor room. Looking around, it was very rich, in a restrained sort of way. The walls were paneled in rich wood—he looked closer, even going so far as to touch one of the walls, and verified that it was a very nice walnut. Caryatid figures stood around the room against the walls, with paintings on the walls between them and smaller statues on rich stands scattered among some very elaborate furniture.

  Johann didn't dare sit down in the room, for fear that some dirt on his clothing would besmirch the fine fabrics on the furniture. He simply stood in the center of the room in the only clear spot, and turned slowly, taking in everything, and wondering how even up-timers could take this for granted. Then his gaze was drawn to the ceiling, where an incredible plaster expanse was painted with a bucolic scene of a group of women and children in a garden. The skill of the painter took his breath.

  He didn't know how long he stood gazing up, enraptured, before, "Johann?"

  Johann turned back toward the fancy archway through which he had entered. Staci stood there, so slight, so small in a skirt and a tailored shirt, hands clasped in front of her, with a slight smile on her face. Her head was slightly tilted as she gazed at him. And for that moment, just that one timeless moment, Johann wanted to do nothing more than enfold her and take her into himself forever. The intensity of the feeling almost frightened him.

  "Johann?" she said again.

  "Umm," he began, then had to stop and clear his throat. He looked around. "How can you live and work with this?" he said

  "Easy," Staci said. "My room isn't nearly this fancy, and my classroom just has plain tables and chairs in it. This is the fancy room for the important people to sit in." She grinned, and it transformed her face from heart-shaped beauty to gamine in that instant. "Lady Beth must like you. She usually uses this room to receive people that she wants to impress."

  "Oh, I am impressed," Johann muttered. "So impressed I am afraid to touch anything."

  "You've never been in a patron's home before?"

  "I have never had a patron like this." He shook himself. "And that has nothing to do with why I'm here."

  Staci's grin flashed again. "So why are you here?"

  "Umm," Johann took a deep breath, "to ask you to join me at Walcha's Coffee House tomorrow evening for an evening of conversation, and…" he reached into an inner pocket of his jacket, "to bring you this." He handed her a book.

  "What's this?" Staci took it, but didn't open it like he had expected her to.

  "A book," he said with a bit of a grin of his own.

  "I can see that." She lightly slapped his arm with the book. "What kind of book?"

  "Poetry, actually."

  With that, she folded it within her arms against her breast. She looked at him for a moment, head tilted again, hazel eyes gleaming above her solemn mouth.

  "Yes."

  Johann looked at her, startled for a moment. "Yes?"

  "Yes, I'd like to spend tomorrow evening with you at Walcha's Coffee House." Her smile this time was somehow soft, with a sweet light that almost seemed to enfold her like a halo.

  "Umm…" Johann was beginning to hate that sound, and it had come out of his mouth a lot tonight. For someone with his self-confidence, that was more than a bit unsettling. "Thank you."

  He felt a smile grow on his face to match hers, and they stood there for a moment sharing the moment.

  "Staci?" Casey appeared in the doorway. "Oh…I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here, Johann."

  The moment was broken, and Johann gathered himself. "It is of no moment, Fräulein Casey. I must leave now anyway." He turned to Staci. "Tomorrow evening, then? About this time?"

  Staci looked at her watch. "A bit later, perhaps. How about six o'clock?"

  Johann bowed his head slightly in acknowledgment. "I will arrive then."

  Staci held a hand out, and Johann took it in his not to shake, but simply to hold and press for a moment. Then he nodded to Casey and took his leave.

  ****

  "What was that all about?" Casey asked.

  Staci continued to gaze at where Johann had left her field of view. "I have a date tomorrow night."

  "A date? What do you mean, a date?"

  "I have been invited to an evening of conversation with Johann Bach at Walcha's Coffee House tomorrow evening at six o'clock."

  "Pfffpt!" Casey uttered, followed immediately by, "Ow!" as Staci slapped her arm much harder with her new book than she had slapped Johann.

  "Seriously?" Casey said, rubbing her arm.

  "Seriously."

  "I dunno about that guy," Casey muttered. "Conversation. Geez."

  "Actually, I think I'm going to like it," Staci said.

  Casey had the wisdom to not say anything more as she was still rubbing her arm.

  Staci folded her book back to her breast and left the room, the small soft smile returning to her lips as she trod the stairs toward their room.

  ****

  The next morning, after their usual stop at Frau Zenzi's, the three Bach brothers were walking down the Kristinstrasse chewing on their morning bread.

  "Oh," Heinrich said suddenly. "I forgot to tell you last night. Master Luder wants to see you today."

  "What about?" Johann said after he swallowed the bite he'd been chewing.

  "Don't know. He didn't say."

  "Well, did he look mad, or sad, or serious, or happy?"

  Heinrich had a mouthful of bread at that point, and it took a bit for him to get it chewed up. "More serious than anything," he finally said. "Not mad, anyway."

  "Something about the pipes?"

  Heinrich shook his head. "No, when he was working on the pipes was the only time that he didn't look serious."

  "Hmm," Johann muttered. "Wonder what he has on his mind. Tell him I will come by before noon."

  Heinrich nodded.

  And it was a moment before noon when Johann stepped through the doorway into Master Luder's forge. The master was bent over something with his journeyman. The young man looked up, saw Johann standing by the doorway, and murmured something to his master. Master Luder looked up in turn, saw Johann and held up a finger. Johann nodded that he would wait a moment, and the master returned to his conversation with the journeyman. Before long, they both straightened, the master clapped his journeyman on the shoulder, then turned and stepped toward Johann.

  "Master Bach."

  "Master Luder."

  The whitesmith was not smiling. Johann grew concerned at the seriousness of his expression. Master Luder slapped his heavy gloves on a shelf, took his jacket from the nearby peg, and said, "Come. We need to talk, and it needs beer."

  Johann smiled to himself as he followed the whitesmith out of the forge. For Master Luder, most conversations seemed to need beer.

/>   It wasn't long before they were seated at a table in a corner of The Green Horse and Master Luder was taking a long pull at his large flagon of beer.

  "Working in the heat of the forge gives you a thirst," Luder said.

  "I can see that," Johann replied after taking a smaller sip of his own flagon. "Heinrich said you wanted to see me? I hope he hasn't been any trouble."

  "No," Luder said, waving a hand in the air. "He is actually proving to be of at least a little bit of help, which is useful, since my apprentice broke his leg a few weeks ago and isn't up to doing the work yet." The whitesmith looked down to where his large blunt-fingered hands were wrapped around his flagon on the table, then looked back up again to face Johann squarely. "We have a problem…or rather, you have a problem that will affect the work I am doing for you."

  Johann leaned back on his stool. "And that is?"

  "You remember how I told you that it looked like they were going to bring in Ludwig Compenius to rebuild the organ in the Dom, the one that Pappenheim gutted?"

  Johann nodded.

  "Well, they struck a deal, and it will happen. Compenius is in Magdeburg this week, examining the Dom and assessing the damage. He will probably go back to Erfurt while he thinks things over and determines what his plans will be, but it will not be long before he returns to begin the work." Luder picked his flagon up and took another pull of its contents.

  Johann considered that. "So we are going to be competing for the same resources, most likely?"

  Luder gave a firm nod. "I expect the prices for the partially refined tin ore from the Ore Mountains to rise. We have not been buying enough yet to cause the demand to rise greatly and prices to jump. But if he starts buying as well, especially in large quantities, that could change. But it is not just the tin ore. He is also trying to line up the local smiths to work on his project."

  "He approached you already?"

  "He did indeed, yesterday afternoon. I told him I had already given my word to work for you. I don't think he was happy about it, but he was polite in his leave-taking."

  "But the other smiths that you were going to use to make the sheets—they are not bound to us, are they?"

  Luder shook his head. "I had talked to them, but without binding them with money or a project, they can accept his work. And if he demands they work for him exclusively, as long as he pays for that, they will do so."

  Johann frowned and crossed his arms, considering what he had been told. This could be a real complication to his plans. After a moment, he unfolded his arms and leaned forward. "First, buy up as much ore as you can get—if that nudges the prices up a little, we will just have to live with that. I would rather make sure we have the ore than worry about paying a bit more for it. If you do not have room to store it all, I think we can find a place in the opera house grounds to store it. We may have to throw up a shed or get some barrels or something, but we will find a way.

  "Second, try to get one of the others to commit to my project. If it takes money, as long as what they want is not totally outside of reason, pay it or promise it, and I will have it covered by the opera house project."

  "You can do that?" Luder's eyebrows rose.

  "I think I can," Johann said. "I need to talk to Frau Haygood soon, though."

  Luder shrugged. "I will do my best. How well I succeed will depend a lot on how quickly Master Compenius is moving, and how much silver he is willing to lay out right now."

  "Understood," Johann said. "Do your best, though. And let me know immediately if anything else changes."

  "That I can do." Luder picked up his flagon and finished off his beer, setting the empty flagon down with a definite thump. "And now, I must get back to the forge. Regardless of what else happens, I still have a lot of work to do."

  The whitesmith strode off, whistling tunelessly enough that Johann was wincing until he was out of earshot. Johann remained at the table staring at a half-full flagon of beer, thoughts awhirl. He really didn't need this complication right now. He had hoped that the rebuilding of the Dom organ would be delayed by some kind of bureaucratic issue or some kind of disagreement among the pastors. After all, that kind of thing happened with fairly great regularity. But of course, something like that would never happen when he would derive some benefit from it.

  "God," Johann muttered with a quick upward look, "it would be nice if You would at least slow them down a little bit."

  There was no answer—not that Johann was expecting one.

  He finished off his flagon of beer and headed out the door himself.

  ****

  Driven by a sudden urge, Johann walked to the cathedral, which lay in the very southern end of Old Magdeburg facing Hans Richter Plaza and just inside the southern walls of the Altstadt, the old city. He could have hired a cab to take him, but the early afternoon was nice with a cloudless sky and a very light breeze, and there was enough traffic that a cab wouldn't have saved him a lot of time. Besides, it gave him some time to think.

  One of the western doors into the nave of the cathedral was open when he approached, so he walked on in. It was his first time in the cathedral, the Dom as everyone referred to it, although the formal name was Dom zu Magdeburg St. Mauritius und Katharina. Once inside, he had to stop and gaze around.

  The Dom was the largest cathedral in the eastern Germanies. From where Johann stood, he could see down the length of the building over 350 feet to the presbytery at the eastern end of the building. Looking up, he could see the vaulted ceilings which rose over 100 feet above the floor. He drank in the sight. It was an impressive building, despite the damage that he could see in various locations where some of Tilly's soldiers had made off with some type of valuable.

  As Johann stood and absorbed the experience of the cathedral, he gradually became aware of others talking.

  "…Gustav appointed Fürst Ludwig von Anhalt-Cöthen to be the administrator of the archbishopric's properties. The Swede now claims to own the Erzstift of Magdeburg, and of course we are in no position to gainsay him." The speaker's voice was nasal and penetrating, even at low volume.

  "Does the Fürst not provide for Magdeburg's needs, then?" The second speaker's voice was a bit rough.

  "He does," the first speaker replied, "but he keeps the purse strings tight and only allows one project at a time. The churches of St. Nikolai and St. Katherina were destroyed totally, and the church of St. Sebastian was badly damaged in the fire set by Tilly's vandals. The Fürst has placed a higher priority on getting at least the major repairs done to St. Sebastian before it collapses."

  "One perhaps cannot blame him for that."

  "In other circumstances, I would agree," the first speaker said stiffly. "But to put that ahead of restoring the cathedral was a mistake, I believe."

  "Regardless, those repairs must be mostly done if he is advancing the funds for the organ restoration."

  At that, Johann turned and faced toward where two men were standing together staring up at where the organ had previously stood in the western end of the cathedral. It was obvious where it had been, as there was this hideous gap in the wall where the pipe ranks should have stood. There was no screen, no grill, no façade of false pipes, only a huge opening in the plasterwork that had been laid over the stone. Johann could dimly see what appeared to be some wooden pipes back in the darkness of the recess of the pipe chamber, but he couldn't see clearly. It did look like many of those were leaning or had even been knocked off their fittings.

  A sudden flare of rage shot through Johann. Now he understood the Magdeburgers' hatred for Tilly, and even more for Pappenheim, who had been left to command the garrison of the city after Tilly's troops had sacked it. It was Pappenheim who had ordered the sale of the metal from the cathedral, which had resulted in the gutting of the organ. Johann now understood that hatred at a very visceral level.

  One of the men was dressed in rather fine black clothing and was holding a large Bible in one hand. Obviously that was the minister.

  The
other was a stocky man dressed in sober clothing. He was facing slightly toward Johann, which allowed Johann to view his profile and recognize him as Ludwig Compenius, the youngest of the current generation of the organ-building Compenius family. He was also the only one of the family that Johann had met, having had the opportunity to speak with Ludwig when he had left his position in Naumburg and relocated to Erfurt, at least temporarily.

  Compenius must have caught sight of Johann out of the corner of his eye, for he turned his head to face him, which in turn caused the pastor to turn and see who the organ builder was looking at.

  "Herr…Bach, is it not?" Compenius' brow wrinkled a bit as he strove for recall.

  "Yes, Master Compenius. Johann Bach."

  "We had a pleasant conversation over a bottle of wine a couple of years ago, I believe."

  "I am flattered that you remember me," Johann said. And that was the truth. Master Compenius, for all that he was only a bit older than Johann himself, had an enviable reputation and was renowned throughout Germany as being "one of those Compeniuses." The fact that he recalled a conversation from almost two years ago provided a bit of encouragement and ego lift to Johann.

  The organ builder chuckled. "Of course, if I had realized that you were going to become a competitor, I might not have been so freely spoken in our conversation."

  "Competitor?" the pastor interjected, looking confused.

  "Ah, Herr Bach, have you met Magister Matthias Decennius, the Caplan im Dom?" Compenius said.

  The pastor was the head pastor for the cathedral, then, which in essence made him the head pastor in Magdeburg. This was not an unimportant man in the city, Johann thought. Even Mayor Gericke walked with some care around Decennius, word of whose uncertain temper had reached even Johann.

  "I am honored to meet you, Magister Decennius," Johann said with a slight bow.

  "And this is Herr Johann Bach," Compenius concluded, "a member of the widespread clan of Bach musicians, a performer of some skill, I believe, and now a designer and builder of organs."