by Eric Flint
"No, and since their descriptions match half the men in the northlands, I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you." Bill remembered everything surrounding the Vogler case rather well—everyone who had anything to do with it did. He looked down at his desk. "Well, now that you know what you know, go find this peddler. Otherwise, I'm going to trade jobs with you and let you deal with this stuff."
Byron shot to his feet. "On my way." And that quickly he was out of the office.
The threat of the paperwork worked every time, Bill smiled to himself. Then he looked at his desk, and groaned. He had to get an assistant soon. He wondered if he could somehow snaffle Odogar out from under Frank Jackson. It would be worth the grief the general would give him just to get someone who could run this office.
* * *
Gotthilf set the last copy of the report on top of the stack and wiped the pen nib to clean it. Byron came in the door to their office just as he set the pen aside. The up-timer waved a paper in the air.
"Finally got the answers from Grantville about the silverware questions we asked."
Gotthilf perked up. He'd wanted to grab the street vendor when Byron saw him selling the tableware, but Byron had insisted on waiting for information from Grantville. "So now we go get him?" He bounced to his feet and checked for his pistol.
"So now we go question him, anyway," Byron laughed. "Whether we get him or not depends on his answers. Come on. I want to check on Willi, anyway."
Gotthilf grabbed his jacket, and in moments they were on the street in front of the building that served as the city watch headquarters. As usual, Byron's long legs set the pace, forcing the shorter Gotthilf almost to a trot to keep up. "Slow down, you great lunk," he gasped after they traveled a block.
"Sorry." Byron slowed his steps to more of a stroll, which allowed Gotthilf to walk at a more normal speed. "I keep forgetting just how sawed off you are." A fleeting grin crossed his craggy face.
"All the better to cut you off at the kneecaps," Gotthilf growled before he smiled in return.
The two men had been partners now for a few weeks. It was an unlikely match at first glance; the lanky up-timer and the short but strongly built down-timer. The relationship had been a bit testy at first; or at least it had on his side, Gotthilf acknowledged. The city watch of Magdeburg was a proud organization, and they had not taken well to the thought that others could tell them how to fulfill their duties. There had been friction at times between the watch and the military police and NCIS staff at the naval yards. Gotthilf was honest enough to admit that there was as much fault on the side of the watch as there was on the navy's, maybe more. But that hadn't made it any easier to deal with the two up-timer officers when Herr Gericke brought them in to help shape the city watch into something more of a police department in the up-time mold.
Gotthilf still wasn't sure why Herr Gericke had selected him to serve as the partner of the tall and laconic up-timer. The first few days had been pretty strained, particularly after Gotthilf made the mistake of speaking disparagingly about a young beggar child. He found out in a moment that the good-natured lieutenant was capable of anger and passion. But the case they had stumbled on as a result of meeting that child had cemented them together as partners. The young down-timer was wholly converted to Byron's point of view, and in turn began to act as leaven to the whole watch. By this point, only the most hidebound of the watch were continuing to resist the new methods.
"I have a question," Gotthilf announced as they turned a corner. Byron looked at him with one of his quizzical expressions—he had a whole arsenal of them, ranging from innocent to sly to out-and-out sarcastic disbelief. This one was just a simple raised eyebrows indication to go ahead. "Why do you call it silverware, when there is no silver in or on it?"
Byron grinned. "More sloppy up-time speaking. It used to be that tableware was made of silver alloys, but that was pretty expensive for most people's pockets. So then someone started silver plating cheaper metals like brass. Looked as good as silver for a lot less money—until you polished the silver plating off and the brass started shining through. But after a while someone decided to start making it out of stainless steel. No rust, no polish needed, and while it didn't take a shine like silver, it was good enough for most folks. But people had been calling the package of knives, forks and spoons 'silverware' for so long that the name just carried over to the stainless steel version. Anyone who was trying to be really correct would say 'flatware,' but in over ninety-nine percent of the homes in America, if someone said 'Get the silverware out and set the table,' what came out of the drawer was stainless steel."
"So what you saw the man in the green coat selling was not silver?"
"Nope. It was pretty definitely stainless steel—it's got a characteristic look to it—and from the brief glance I got it wasn't even some of the better stuff. But good, bad or ugly, I saw at least three pfennigs change hands, so he was getting a good price for that knife, fork and spoon set."
They were entering that section of town that had become a street vendors' haven. One side of the street had been burned down in 1631 when Tilly's troops had sacked Magdeburg. The resulting spaces where houses and buildings had been had mostly been cleared off, but little reconstruction was under way in this area yet. Every kind of vendor and peddler that could be imagined could be found in these open spaces, including some of the more unsavory types. In fact, this was where they had found the pickpocket that had led them to crack the Vogler case.
"So where was he?" Gotthilf started looking around.
Byron pointed. "There—about half a block down on the left."
They drew closer. "He's not there now," Gotthilf observed.
"No joke. Let's start asking questions."
* * *
After close to an hour of asking fruitless questions, Byron pulled Gotthilf back into the traffic moving in the street. "Come on. We're not getting anywhere. Let's go check on Willi." They started walking on down the street toward Das Haus Des Brotes, the bakery operated by Herr Anselm Ostermann and his formidable wife, Frau Kreszentia Traugottin. Anselm was the baker, and Frau Zenzi, as she was known to one and all, was the public face of the bakery, ranging from cajoling saleslady to shrewd bargainer to hard-faced punisher of theft in as many breaths. They had become the foster parents of young Willi, the almost totally blind eight-year-old boy who had, all unwittingly on his part, led the two partners to the discovery of the faginy ring operating in Magdeburg under the very noses of the city council and the watch.
At the bloody conclusion of the case, which had ended in the death of one of the children—a girl who was Willi's best friend—and the death of the fagin, one Lubbold Vogler, there had been red faces all around. Otto Gericke, Burghermeister and de facto head of the Magdeburg civic government, had not minced words. Nor had the senior pastor of the city, whose outright horror at what had occurred had turned to rage of Biblical proportions. Clerks had been sent scurrying to find the lists of the children orphaned in the sack of the city in 1631. Assistant pastors had been handed the lists and sent out at a run to verify the whereabouts and condition of each of those children. There was a feeling that thunderbolts were about to strike, and it did not ease for over a week until the last of the children and their foster parents had been located. Broadsheets and newspapers had kept the matter fresh for several days, until the latest news from the imperial court had driven it off the front pages.
The source of it all, young Willi, was up to his elbows in bread dough when Byron and Gotthilf were ushered into the back of the bakery. He had flour on his hair, on the cloth that covered his damaged eyes, on his eyebrows. Bits of dough were stuck to his chin and cheek.
The smile on Willi's face was a welcome sight to the two men. The recent changes in his life had left the boy depressed for some time. To see some happiness in him lifted them both up.
"Willi," Frau Zenzi announced, "your two favorite watchmen are here."
"Hey, Willi," Byron said. "How's it going?"
"Herr Byron, Herr Gotthilf!" Gladness rang in Willi's voice. "I'm learning how to knead the dough. Papa Anselm says that when I learn to do that, then he will teach me how to shape it for the oven."
"That's good," Byron exclaimed. They spent several minutes talking with Willi. He very proudly showed off what he had been taught, and the two men congratulated him profusely.
After a time, they said their farewells. Frau Zenzi followed them outside. "Truly, how does he do?" Gotthilf asked.
"Well enough," she replied. "He smiles more, and even whistles or sings a bit now and then. The voice of a cherub, he has."
"Don't let my sister-in-law, Marla, hear that, or she'll have him in a choir so fast that you wouldn't know what happened." Byron's voice was joking, but then his expression turned thoughtful. "Actually, I might mention it to her after all. If he's good, she might be able to find him a place, give him some training, like that. With singing, his eyes won't hold him back." Frau Zenzi frowned a little. "I'm not saying right now. Maybe never. But it's an option. Something to think about. Give some thought to what kind of future a blind boy can have, Frau Zenzi." She nodded slowly.
"Is he still having the nightmares?" Gotthilf asked.
"Not so much. And he asked to go to her grave, so we took him last Sunday." Her was his friend Erna, the one who had been killed.
"How did that go?" Byron had been wondering when Willi would make that pilgrimage.
"He cried, but it was quiet. He took the cloth off his eyes and tried to look around, but we could tell he saw nothing. My heart, it broke when he asked me to tell him what everything looked like." She wiped a tear from her eye with the corner of her apron.
"It sounds like he's getting better, then." Byron nodded to her in parting. "Take good care of him, Frau Zenzi."
"We will."
* * *
Harold Baxter set his stein down with a thump and dragged his sleeve across his mouth, then smoothed down his scraggly beard. The seventeenth century's widespread acceptance of full beards was a good thing in his mind; he'd always disliked shaving. He still had the straight razor his grandpa'd given him over forty years ago, though. Push came to shove, it wasn't a bad hideout weapon. It had gotten him out of more than one bar fight alive over the years, both up-time and down.
He let a belch roll out, and gave himself a three for it. Tone was a little dead. Then he looked across the table at the man who was fidgeting with his own stein.
"So, what do you want, Herr Albret?" Harold knew the other guy's name was Albrecht Lang, but he had trouble with the German "ch" sound, especially after a few beers.
"I need more of the Tafelsilber, bitte, Herr Baxter."
"How much more?"
"I can sell three packages tomorrow, if I have them."
Harold nodded. "Show me the money." He watched as Herr Lang counted the pfennigs to the table, one at a time . . . four, five, six . . . and slowly pushed them to Harold's side. His eyes narrowed; he pushed one of the coins back. "You suckered me once with a Halle pfennig, Lang. Not again. Good silver, or you get nothing."
"But that is all I have." Lang's nasal voice turned whiny, sending a shiver down Harold's spine.
"Shut up." Lang shut up. Baxter swept four of the pfennigs into his hand and dipped into a pocket of his bush jacket, then pulled bundles wrapped in none-too-clean scraps of cloth out of another of the jacket's many pockets. "Here's two sets. I'll be here tomorrow if you get more money." Lang looked like he wanted to argue or plead, but a glare from the up-timer made him gulp and grab the last two coins off the table top along with the bundle. "And Albret?" The down-timer froze. "You try that trick with a Halle coin again, and your prices will double." Lang jerked his head in a nod, then fled without another word.
Harold sniggered, then spat into the fireplace. He'd always found the fact that Lang meant long in English funny, since Herr Albret was one of the scrawniest people he'd ever met. Nothing about him was long, except maybe his hair and his nose. The thought of hair brought a reflexive scratch of his scalp. He drew his fingers away to look at the louse he'd caught, then cracked it between a fingernail and the table.
No one else looked like they were going to approach him, so Harold decided to call it a day. He drained the last few swallows of beer from his stein, then shoved himself to his feet and walked to the door. Before the Ring fell, Harold had always prided himself on being able to walk a straight line, even when he'd taken on a full load of booze. He could still do it, he thought as he went out the door.
* * *
Two men across the room watched Baxter leave.
"That him?"
"Yes."
* * *
Byron looked across the street as they were headed back to the watch station. A young woman held her coat open for a moment to hide the hand that beckoned to him. He nudged Gotthilf with his shoulder. "C'mon." They stepped across the street to meet her.
Byron knew she was a street walker, but what was her name . . . oh, yeah, Leonora. Pretty name, he thought. She'd been pretty at one time, in a pale-skinned sort of way; pretty enough to perhaps live up to her namesake. No longer, however. For all that she was young, there were lines graven in her face that spoke of pain and wastage, lines that turned her visage into a portrait of experience and suffering with eyes full of desolation that wouldn't have been out of place on a woman three times her age.
"Don't smile at me," she said. "Act angry, please." Byron caught on immediately, and pasted a dark frown on his face. Gotthilf took a moment longer to understand, then his expression turned stern.
"You reached out to us," Byron said, shaking his finger in her face for those who watched. "What for?"
"You look for a man in a green coat, one who sells things from the up-time?"
"You know we do." Gotthilf postured by grabbing her shoulder.
"His name is Albrecht Lang."
"Ah." The two men stored the name away.
"Do you want to know who he gets his wares from?" Leonora looked down as if being chastened.
Byron had to struggle to keep his expression in place. "If you know who it is, you bet."
"An up-timer named Harold Baxter."
"How do you know that?"
"Albrecht arranged for me to spend a night with Herr Baxter." Leonora wrapped her arms close around her chest and looked away. "He hurt me."
A flash of rage went through Byron. "So, why are you telling us?"
"You were nice to Annie. And someone needs to stop Baxter. He will kill one of us some day—us or others."
"You're not the only one he's hurt?"
"No."
He wanted to have a talk with Baxter, Byron decided.
"Is there anything else you can tell us?" Gotthilf asked.
"No."
"Okay." Byron started shaking his finger at her again. "Don't do anything stupid, but if you need protection, come to the watch house and tell them my name. We're going to walk off now, so look dejected."
The two men walked away from the streetwalker and resumed their journey to the watch house. "Another victim," Gotthilf muttered.
"Yeah." Byron shoved his hands in his jacket pockets. "You know, I'm not religious, not like my wife and sister-in-law, but the more time I spend in this job, the more it seems like the concept of original sin just has to be true. I mean, look at us." He gestured around. "Every society the world has recorded history about had prostitution. And for every streetwalker who gets rich as a high-level courtesan or finds a loving marriage, a thousand or more die, old before their time, used, abused, diseased and usually wrecked by alcohol or worse. If man is so good and so perfectable, why does this crap happen over and over and over?"
"You had them up-time?"
Byron gave a short bitter laugh. "Oh, yeah, we had them up-time. And we were still arguing about what to do about them. Almost four hundred years later, and we weren't doing any better than your time does."
The rest of the walk occurred in silence. Both men were alo
ne in their thoughts, each in his own way contemplating the difference between what had been and what was now.
* * *
Gotthilf bounced into the office he shared with Byron. "Good morning!" he exclaimed.
Byron winced, and waved at a chair. "Sit, sit, and be quiet until I finish my coffee."
Gotthilf grinned and sat. Bill Reilly had explained to him not long ago that Byron was in no way a morning person, and if he wanted to preserve tender portions of his anatomy from being chewed upon, he shouldn't approach Byron in the morning until after he'd had at least one oversized mug of coffee. From the looks of it, Byron was almost done with his first mug.
It wasn't long before Byron set the empty mug down. "Stop smirking at me, and let's go see the boss."
Gotthilf followed him to Captain Reilly's office.
"Hey, Bill."
"Captain Reilly."
The captain looked up from whatever he was reading this time, and groaned theatrically. "Oh, no. Both of you at once. What's happened now? Is the Penguin loose in Magdeburg?"
Byron laughed. Gotthilf, on the other hand, was bewildered, and it showed. His partner caught his expression. "Never mind. More crazy American stuff. I'll explain later." He turned back to the captain. "Bill, you ever had anything to do with a guy named Harold Baxter in Grantville?"
"Baxter . . . Baxter . . . name sounds familiar, but I can't tell you why. Why are you asking?"
"Because it turns out there may be something to this silverware thing after all, and if there is, he's probably involved in it."
"Baxter . . . Baxter . . . Oh, yeah, now I remember. He's Raelene Baxter's brother—she got left up-time. He was married to Sharlyn Douglas for a while, too. I think he's Brandi Dobbs' dad. I remember the divorce . . . pretty nasty. Dad used to say he was a mean cuss, and there was apparently some pretty strong evidence that he was abusive to Sharlyn and Brandi. After that, he moved out of town and raised fighting dogs . . . mostly pit bulls. I'd forgotten he got caught up in the Ring of Fire. He must have been in town to buy something."
