by Eric Flint
But there had also been Arndt's job for Troeschler. Which had led them to some rather interesting information about graft, corruption, and kickbacks in the timber business. Arndt might be dead, but Troeschler would pay. They had both been boatmen in their younger days, which wasn't unusual. They had hired on with Bastl's barge-yard, representing themselves as casual laborers on their return from a seasonal job, happy to work for a few days and then punt a barge down the river in order to make some money on their way back home.
* * * *
Mary and Veronica were thinking about having lunch in a pretty clearing by a big creek. At least, Mary thought it was a creek. It would have been a creek, up-time.
Veronica said that it was a river. The tiny stream that ran by Grafenwöhr itself was a brook, but they had followed the road about three miles south from the town and now they were looking at the river.
Just downstream, there was sawing and hammering.
"That's Wilhelm Bastl's barge-yard. His first wife was Johann Stephan's niece. Just below it is Karl Hanf's cooperage. That's where I'm staying, at his house. He makes ore barrels. Or made them, exclusively, back when iron production was higher. Now he'll make any kind of keg that anybody wants. Business is really off for both of them since mining collapsed."
Veronica turned around. "That's why there's a clearing here. They build the shallow-draft barges and rafts here, upstream, to float ore and pig iron downstream. They don't bother to bring them back—just sell them when they get to Regensburg or wherever they are headed. It was far busier when I was a girl." She pointed at the creek. "Look, you can see for yourself. The water is running practically clear. When I was a child, it was red-orange with the rust from the mines and slag piles."
"I really would not have imagined," Mary said, "that a creek this small could be used for navigation."
"This is the river," Veronica answered stubbornly. "There is an elaborate system of locks and dams, all the way down the river. There had to be, since the water was also used to power the trip-hammers, which meant that the barges had to navigate past the mill wheels and mill ponds. If you don't want to stop and eat right now, we can go further down, below the cooperage, I can show you the first lock that takes the barges over the rapids. It must still be working, since they're still building barges here."
It had been a lot easier for a child of ten or eleven years old to get out to the lock than it was for a woman of fifty-nine. It wasn't the fairly well prepared path that the workmen used. It was the back way that kids had used when she was growing up. Veronica was starting to wonder if this had been a good idea. After all, they would have to climb back up.
They did make it down, at which time they decided by consensus to sit with their feet dangling over the water and eat lunch before they climbed back up. Alas, they weren't as young as they used to be.
The lock was filling up, gradually. A barge loaded with full barrels was tied up at the side of the stream, ready to go. Next to it, waiting for cargo, was an empty one. Thirty or forty years ago, Veronica said, the lock would have been crowded. They wouldn't have even bothered to open the gates for one barge.
They couldn't stay to watch the gates open, though. Veronica suggested rather firmly that when the lock got filled to three fourths, they should start to climb back up. Men would be coming down to untie the barge and punt it out. She remembered very well from her childhood that people at the barge-yard got really mad if they caught unauthorized people sitting down here dangling their feet over the water on a fine summer day. It would be rather embarrassing for the wife of Admiral Simpson and the wife of Mayor Dreeson to be hauled into court for trespassing on private property.
* * * *
Johann Rothwild could hardly believe his luck. Because of the hammering and sawing upstream, the two old women were out of sight and out of hearing of anyone else. The one old lady had actually put her walking stick down while she ate. That had been the only thing that either of the fool women might have used as a weapon.
So. Knife them. Take anything valuable. Toss the bodies into the lock. Everybody would put it down to beggars or vagabonds or unemployed mercenaries, which amounted to pretty much the same thing.
Motioning his henchman and Hermann Richter to follow him, he started down the back way to the lock, which turned out to be just as awkward for them as it had been for Mary and Veronica. It was, after all, just a deer path. One of the branches that he had grasped to keep his balance broke with a crack and he slipped a couple of feet.
* * * *
Mary heard the men first, but by the time she turned, they were already down to the bottom of the path. With their knives out. Running. She got off two shots. Both missed. Aiming at running men with a short-barreled revolver was a chancy thing.
* * * *
Rothwild cursed. Those shots would have been heard, even with all the sawing and hammering upstream. Someone was bound to come and investigate. They had to get this over and get out of here fast. Damn Uncle Kilian!
* * * *
Veronica, contrary to masses of good advice and lectures delivered by Henry, Gretchen, Dan Frost, and a wide variety of other people, did not carry a gun. By this time, though, she was on foot with the walking stick in her hands. It was a long one, a shepherd's crook. Her grip was not scientific—two hands desperately grabbing the straight end. Against someone trained to fight with a cudgel, she wouldn't have delivered a single blow. It did, however, have a considerably longer range than knives. She got in one hard thwap against the shoulder of one of the men attacking them
Unfortunately, it was the man's left shoulder; and he was obviously a brawler, used to taking blows. He didn't drop his knife. The weight of walking stick, held out awkwardly as it was, slid it from his shoulder down to the ground. As she struggled to bring it back up, entirely by accident, she caught one of the other men's legs with it—she recognized him suddenly; it was Hermann: what on earth was Hermann doing here?—and dumped him into the lock.
The third man kept coming. With a shock, she recognized him also. Sara's boy; Rothwild. The one who had gone to the bad. He had apparently stayed there, once he arrived. That was her last thought for the time being.
* * * *
Mary scrambled to her feet and looked over. The biggest man, with his left hand, grabbed the walking stick about a third of the way down, pulled it from Veronica's grip and knocked her out.
After those first two shots, Mary had stopped herself from shooting again. No point in wasting the bullets. At closer range, she had better luck. Not, however, good enough luck. The first two of the four remaining bullets still seemed to have missed. She accidentally bloodied one man's hand; the bullet went on to scratch the side of his neck. The last one landed in his upper arm, breaking it just below where Veronica had smacked him on the shoulder. He stopped, bent over, looking nauseated.
The other man kept coming. She threw her gun into his face. He lost his balance, slipping on the slick grass, and fell forward heavily against her. He was tall; his knife went over her shoulder. Both fell. Mary, closer to the edge, went over into the lock, striking her head on a piling on the way down.
* * * *
Forst and Becker, since they were supposed to float Bastl's barge full of barrels out, had already been half-way down the good path when the shooting started. They started to run. They saw the end of the picnic and panicked. Three attackers, counting the one who was now floundering his way over toward the edge of the lock. Only one really appeared to be out of the fight. They were unarmed themselves.
And the women. Foreign women.
Their own connections with the landgrave of Leuchtenberg would show up if there was an investigation. What if someone had intercepted Arndt's reports to the landgrave? They were Leuchtenberger. If they were caught at the scene, the Swedes would blame their lord for this assault on the two women. It would give the Swedes a chance to defame his character. And he hadn't had a thing to do with it. Neither had they. It wasn't their fault.
/> They didn't stop to talk. Becker disposed of the big man who had fallen on his face after knocking the one woman into the water, using the man's own knife. Just a simple stab through the neck while he was still half-stunned from the collision. Forst frantically wrestled two empty barrels from the waiting barge to the loaded one. Becker fished Mary out of the lock and dropped her into one of the barrels, bunging on the lid. Forst picked up Veronica, dropped her into the other barrel, and did the same.
They untied the barge and punted it out into the middle of the lock, waiting for the gate.
By the time the men from the cooperage got there, they were standing on the barge, not precisely calmly, but looking no more excited than men should who had just witnessed a fight. They waved urgently, motioning toward the two men on the bank and the one in the water.
"Fight," they yelled. "There was a fight."
At the far end of the lock, the gates opened.
Chapter 28
Maleficiae Abditae Atque Perfidiosae
Grafenwöhr, the Upper Palatinate
Karl Hanf, who was not as young as he used to be, came huffing down the path from the cooperage after his men.
"What happened?"
"Two guys from Bastl's were already out on the barge. They yelled that there had been a fight."
Hanf took in the scene.
Two of his men, holding a very wet one. Who was Hermann Richter.
One of his men standing over another, who was injured. Seen him hanging around town lately.
Two more, rolling a very dead one from his face to his back. Familiar. Oh, God. That beast Johann Rothwild, the brother of Bastl's first wife.
"Go up the path. Bar it and don't let Bastl's men from the barge-yard come down here." That was to the two men who had turned Rothwild over.
He wished he had more men. It was taking two to hang on to Hermann. He'd have to risk the third man staying down. From the looks of the wound in his arm, that wouldn't be a problem. Not for a while, anyway.
"Run up and get some rope, as fast as you can. We're going to have to truss that one. Hurry."
Hanf moved; he would stand over the third man himself. And just in case...
He picked up a walking stick that was lying near the corpse. Veronica's walking stick?
He looked around. He saw something in the lock, floating next to the empty barge, which had kept it from going downstream when the lock opened. He fished it out, grabbing the handles with the crook. Veronica's tote bag.
And, on the grass, the remains of a picnic lunch.
He stood over the injured man, thinking. All they could get him for would be systematic overcharging on the barrels—pegging his costs at what they would have been if he were buying lumber at the set prices rather than stolen lumber. It was Bastl who was directly involved in the timber thefts, which was why he was behind deadline on Troeschler's barges. His main supplier had recently been arrested. And Bastl's former brother-in-law was lying here dead.
All they could get him for was overcharging. That would just be a fine. A stiff fine, hard to pay in bad times, but still just a fine. And he had an obligation of hospitality; Veronica had been staying at his own house.
The guy came back with the rope.
Hanf came to a decision.
"Tie them both up. The one with the bad arm, just tie it to his body; then tie his feet. When that's done, you two go up and help keep Bastl's men from coming down the path and trampling everything. And you"—he pointed to the man who had gotten the rope—"get into town as fast as you can and notify the authorities. I'll watch here."
* * * *
The proper authorities, consisting of the bailiff, Thomas von Wenzin, and two of his men, came in a hurry. As did Böcler, Marc Cavriani, Rastetter, and Brechbuhl. The proper authorities had not been enthusiastic about this. However, it did make a significant difference to von Wenzin's thought processes that Böcler had a letter signed by the regent, with all appropriate formalities.
Böcler had drafted it himself. It said exactly what the regent had directed. He was fully authorized to investigate, in the regent's name, "whatever is going on." Böcler had already internalized one of the fundamental rules of the successful bureaucrat. Unless there is some compelling reason to be specific, be vague. He hadn't expected this, of course. But he was fully authorized to investigate it, now that it had happened. Before they left town, he had sent a courier to Hand. Now....
Marc picked up a piece of metal, half-buried in the grass. "This is an up-time pistol. I don't think that pistol is the right word for it, precisely. But it is a gun to hold in the hand. Easy to handle, for a small woman like Frau Simpson. Also, easy to hide."
Böcler nodded. He had seen a similar one. The up-timers had given it to Duke Ernst, who kept it inside his doublet. Always.
* * * *
The Grafenwöhr bailiff looked dubious. The "handgun" was very small. It was hard to believe that it would shoot anything, but there had, indubitably, been shots.
Karl Hanf was singing a song about timber theft. Von Wenzin thought that its verses would tie Wilhelm Bastl to a man who had been recently arrested in Weiden. The bailiff would have to write the Pfleggerichter there. He didn't think that it probably had anything to do with what had been going on here.
The injured man was swearing that he didn't know a thing. Rothwild had hired him and he didn't know who had hired Rothwild. Von Wenzin thought that might possibly be true.
That left Kilian Richter's son. They'd better take him back to town.
Böcler and the bailiff agreed that they had probably seen everything that was to be seen here. Von Wenzin sent a couple of his men up to arrest Bastl. He'd worry about the paperwork when he got back to town. If he gave the man time, he would start destroying records as soon as he heard what had happened.
* * * *
Hermann Richter, upon being interviewed under some duress, admitted that he, Rothwild, and the third man had attacked Frau Dreeson and Frau Simpson. He even admitted that his father had put them up to it.
He denied that the three of them had attacked the women with the intent of killing them. Von Wenzin thought that the judge could take that for what it was worth.
The utter absurdity was that Hermann insisted that, while he was in the water, two men whom he had never seen before, with whom he was in no way acquainted, and of whom he had no knowledge whatsoever had shown up in the middle of the attack, picked up the two women, dropped them into barrels on the barge, and taken them away.
"That's ridiculous on the face of it," Von Wenzin told him emphatically.
On the other hand...
The two women were not to be found. And, by Hanf's statement, not much time had passed between when the first two shots were fired and the men from the cooperage arrived on the scene. Plus, Hanf's men said that there had been a barge in the lock.
The absurdity was that Hermann Richter denied knowing anything about the other two. Questioning, duly authorized by the Pfleggerichter, resumed.
* * * *
Kilian Richter, hauled before the forces of justice on the basis of his son's statement, reluctantly—very reluctantly—admitted to hiring Rothwild and his henchman to attack Veronica, and to having sent his son with Rothwild. He swore that he had no intention of any kind to cause damage to Frau Simpson. He also swore that he knew nothing at all about any other men or any barge.
The bailiff didn't believe a word of it.
* * * *
The third man, re-interviewed rather emphatically, insisted that he didn't know anything at all about what Kilian Richter may have told Rothwild. He insisted that he had never seen Richter before in his life, did not even know his name, and had been recruited for the job down near Amberg by Rothwild only. He only knew that there was someone in the background who held the purse.
He did say that originally, when they started out in the morning, they had only expected to attack Frau Dreeson and not necessarily that very day. They had attacked when the second w
oman was there only because it was such a conveniently isolated spot. Upon being pressed, he said, "well, there was so much hammering and sawing upstream, no one would be likely to hear screams. Rothwild thought it was just sort of convenient to do it there."
The bailiff, fingering his beard, asked just why they had expected screams.
"Well, it was just in case. Actually, once we took a look, we hoped we could stab the old ladies in their backs while they were sitting down eating their lunch, without any trouble."
On the basis of that, the bailiff started re-interviewing Hermann. It was a long night in the Grafenwöhr city hall basement.
* * * *
The only consistency between Hermann's version and the henchman's story was that they absolutely did not know anything about the barge or the bargemen.
Wilhelm Bastl, questioned without duress, knew a little about both, none of it involving any plans to kidnap women and put them on the barge. The two men were just casual laborers, he said—boatmen when they were younger, on their way home. They had only been at the yard a short time.
The bailiff did ask for the precise date when Bastl hired them. He didn't immediately identify as significant that it was a few days after Veronica Dreeson had arrived in Grafenwöhr.
Did Bastl know where they were going?
Not exactly, but he had heard one of them mention that he had been born in Pfreimd and had a cousin who worked as a chambermaid in Amberg.
That meant nothing to von Wenzin, either.
* * * *
Böcler, Marc, and Brechbuhl were upstairs with Rastetter. They had all courteously declined von Wenzin's invitation to be present at the interrogations. As soon as they got back to Grafenwöhr, Rastetter had sent his clerk to Hanf's house to collect all the papers Veronica had there. The oldest niece, a mulish look on her face, had come back to the city hall with him, demanding to be given an itemized receipt on her aunt's behalf; staying until she got one; standing behind the clerk as he went through each item to make sure that he didn't leave anything out. Marc thought that Frau Dreeson must have looked a lot like that when she was thirty years younger.
