Eric Flint's Blog, page 324

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 53

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 53

“The first thing you must know, young Simon, is that all men, even the greatest of heroes, have flaws. Only our Savior is without flaw or imperfection. Even the greatest heroes of the Bible have flaws. Why, King David . . .” Pastor Gruber stopped for a moment. “But then, you are asking about Samson, not David.” He coughed for a moment, a deep wet sound. “Let us just say that Samson was a good example of a flawed hero.”

          “But he was so strong, and so great, and so mighty,” Simon protested.

“The ancient Greeks tell us that the greater the hero, the deeper his flaws, the worst of which was arrogant pride, what they called hubris.” The old man raised a hand. “And certainly that seems to be true of Samson. I have often thought that Samson was not a very smart man, myself.”

Simon was stunned. He’d come to the church looking for answers, only to find that the pastor had some of the same thoughts he had. That left his mind reeling for a moment. “But Delilah…” he finally said.

“Ah, the harlot Delilah,” Pastor Gruber replied with a small smile. “How old are you, lad?”

“Twelve, I think.”

“Have you started looking at girls yet?”

Simon sat back, startled and embarrassed. It was strange to him. Girls caught his eye recently in a way they never had before. Not that any would look at him, not once they saw his arm.

“Never mind,” the pastor chuckled before Simon could respond. “If you have not yet, you will soon.”

The old man sobered. “The attraction of a man for a woman is a gift from God, but it is also one of Satan’s greatest temptations. For some men, women are a weakness. They cannot stay away from them, especially if they are not their own wives. Samson was that way, if I read the scriptures correctly.” He sighed. “A man who has a weakness for women is disarmed when he meets one who is a subtle schemer and conniver like Delilah.”

“So why didn’t God tell Samson to leave her alone?”

“But he did, Simon. Samson was what they called a Nazirite, and he had rules that he was supposed to live by.” Pastor Gruber clicked his tongue. “He knew what God wanted from him. But Samson was a very proud man, so he did what he wanted.”

“Why didn’t God stop Samson from meeting Delilah?”

“You will have to ask God that question some day, young Simon, for I have no answer.” The pastor chuckled again. “In fact, I have my own list of questions. But consider Samson’s end.” He closed his eyes and quoted from memory.

 ”And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.”

“What do you mean?” Simon asked.

“At the end,” Pastor Gruber mused, “after he had failed, Samson remembered what God had called him to do. He called out to God, and God rewarded him for it.”

“Rewarded? Being killed is a reward?” Simon’s questions were impassioned.

“All men die, Simon.” The old pastor pointed out the door of the church. “Kings die, merchants die, soldiers and generals die, doctors and lawyers and farmers and bakers all die. Even old pastors die.” He laid a hand on his own chest. “No one escapes death, not even our Savior. Cheating death is never within our grasp, as much as some people try to do it.” He lowered his hand. “No, lad, what matters is how you die. Sometimes that matters even more than how you live. That was certainly so in Samson’s case. ‘So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.’ Despite his arrogant pride, it is not a bad epitaph for a hero who died defending his people.”

Simon sat back, slumped. “I . . . I don’t know. I never thought of it that way. It just seemed so . . . so stupid, the way things happened.”

Pastor Gruber gave his gentle smile. “But scripture says that the ways of the Lord are foolishness to men.”

They sat in silence together for some time. The old pastor seemed to know when to quit talking, letting the boy’s mind work through everything that had been given him. At length, Simon straightened.

“I need to think about this.” He faced Pastor Gruber. “Can I come back and talk with you again?”

Again the gentle smile bloomed in the middle of the white whiskers. “Of course, young Simon. I am here most days. The senior pastors don’t let me preach much these days . . . my voice isn’t what it used to be, I’m afraid, and I am a bit absent-minded at times. But they do not mind my spending time here where I can be a hand and a voice for those poor souls in this part of the city. And if there are weddings or such scheduled, we will find a quiet corner, you and I.”

Simon stood and awkwardly bobbed his head. “Thank you, Pastor Gruber. I think you have helped me.”

“The Lord helped you, lad. I am just an old man waiting for my days to end.”

“Well, thank you anyway.” Simon walked to the doorway of the church, then turned to look back. Pastor Gruber stood in another beam of light from a window and raised a hand in farewell. Simon waved back, then plunged back into the streets of Magdeburg.

 

The Forever Engine – Snippet 02

The Forever Engine – Snippet 02

“I hardly believe it myself. It wasn’t meant to be. It was intended as a weapon, very hush-hush. I don’t completely understand how it was supposed to work, something about quantum tunneling projectiles going straight through the earth without actually touching it, that sort of thing. I suppose that’s all academic now, in any case, because that’s not what happened. When they test fired the device it sent the projectile out as planned, but instead of it appearing at the target point, a different object appeared back here, at the launch site.

“And what happened to the projectile?” I said.

“No idea. So far as we can tell it simply vanished. They’ve done quite a number of test fires. The projectile always disappears. The accelerator brings back a small solid object — sometimes rock, sometimes a molten slug of metal, but sometimes an intact artifact. Artifacts from the past, Jack. Artifacts from our past, we thought, until this.”

Reggie tapped the coin with his finger. I looked at it again, looked at the coin from the third year of a reign which, in our world, had lasted only six months! For a moment blood pounded in my ears; the room spun. I leaned back in the chair and held its arms to steady myself, breathing slowly and evenly.

“This . . . this can’t be right. A time machine? A different past? How do you know all that? Maybe it’s just a movie prop you snagged by accident from the Fox back lot.”

“I understand how you feel. Honestly, I doubt you can say anything I didn’t say myself when I first heard about all this. If you want the technical explanation of radioactive decay dating and something I think they called electron cloud shift, one of the boffins can trot it all out for you later. I don’t really understand any of it myself, but I know when people are lying and when they absolutely believe they are telling the truth. You do as well, don’t you? Well these scientists are telling the truth. And they are frightened.”

I stared at the coin. Emperor Galba, huh?

“Okay. If it’s not from our past, then what gives?”

“The boffins believe someone else has accessed the past, perhaps someone from our future – or perhaps even us – and either deliberately or inadvertently altered it.”

I shook my head. “No way. We still remember our past, we still have museums full of artifacts from it. How can the past change and the present stay the same?”

“Well, of course it cannot. But among the theories being bounced about, the most compelling one is that of a temporal event wave. If you drop a rock in a pond on one side, its effects are not felt immediately on the opposite shore, but eventually they reach there. The notion is a change in the past takes time – whatever that means in this context — to manifest its effects in the present, that it moves forward through time destroying the presents it passes through and replacing them with the alternate. The wave simply has not yet reached us, but when it does . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Everything changes,” I said. “But we won’t know it changes. As far as we know, it will always have been like that, right?”

“It’s more than that I’m afraid. My mother was married before she married my father. Her first husband, who so far as I know she loved very much, fell down the steps of the church as they emerged on their wedding day, broke his neck, and died. Several years later she met my father, married, and I am the result. But had her first husband not found his death in remarkably unlikely circumstances, I would never have existed. Someone else would have, in all likelihood, but not me.

“I don’t believe in predestination, Jack. Although we’ve never spoken of anything so esoteric, I don’t think you believe in it either, or you would not behave the way I have seen you do.

“Men like us believe we make our own destiny, to the extent we are able, and for everything beyond that the gods roll the dice. Leaving aside whether someone else would have saved your life in Khost that one time had I not been in the world, what is the likelihood you would exist at all? How many times in your ancestry, stretching back thousands of years, do you suppose a future hinged on whether a man looked to his right and saw the love of his life, or to his left and saw the woman he settled for instead? The gods rolled the dice, Jack, and as a result of all those rolls here we are. But change something and, aside from its direct effects, the table is cleared, the game begins anew, and all those dice are rolled again. What are the chances they will all come up exactly the same? And what if even one of them is different?

“No, when this temporal event wave passes, it may leave a world full of people, but they will be entirely different people. I cannot conceive you or I or anyone we know and love will actually be among them, no matter how much some of them may coincidentally resemble us. We will all be dead. Well, we will never have existed, but I’ll let the philosophers argue that distinction in whatever time they have left. To me it amounts to the same thing.”

It was a terrifying prospect, or at least would have been if I believed any of it. Wave effects taking time to move through time, theories spun on top of other theories, none of it was real. But across the desk Reggie absent-mindedly tapped the plastic coin case.

That damned coin was real. I felt sweat on my forehead. What if . . .?

The lights dimmed for a moment and came back up. I heard a soft chime from somewhere deeper in the facility.

“Ah,” Reggie said. “Firing up the accelerator for tonight’s test shot. They’re sending something really large back this time, so we’ll see what we get in return. The white lab coats think there’s some sort of conservation of matter and energy thingie at work — we send something back and automatically displace an equivalent mass here to keep things in balance.”

“How long have we got if this wave effect theory is real?” I asked.

“We don’t know, but they’re playing with different settings, power and that sort of thing, trying to find as many artifacts from different times as possible and see if they match our expectations, or if . . .  well, they are somehow different.

“And you want me to look at whatever shows up here.”

“Precisely. We need you to look for historical discrepancies like this coin. We have a few other historians I’ll introduce you to shortly, but to my mind you’re the key, Jack. You see, you always had an eye for detail, for little things not quite right, and a preternatural ability to see relationships no one else could. That’s why we really need you here: first to find out how much time we have, and then to help formulate a plan. If someone has altered our past, we need to change it back, and I suspect we will have only one opportunity to do so.”

I sat back and thought about that, and I didn’t much like it. This was their plan? Poke around, see what turned up, and hope I could pull a quantum rabbit out of the hat? Jesus Christ!

He drew a polished metal flask from his pocket, took a drink, and handed it to me. I noticed his hand trembled as he did so. I’d never seen Reggie’s hand shake. I took a long pull. Irish — Reggie always preferred Irish to Scotch.

“If I’m going to do this,” I said, “I need to talk to someone from the physics side, someone who can explain things in English instead of foot-long equations on a blackboard. I’ll need to see the existing artifacts as well. Presumably you have a data base started?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I need to know the plan, the logic of their search for artifacts, and see if we can tweak that to get better results. Well, that’s a start.”

“Right. I’ll go find the others, introduce you to the team – your team. I knew you were the right man for this.” He rose and turned to leave.

“One more thing, Reggie. I want to call Sarah. My phone’s not going to screw anything up, is it?”

“No, certainly not, but you may have trouble getting a signal once the accelerator starts, so I’d call now.” He left through a door opposite the side we’d entered and I took out my phone.

“Call Sarah.” I heard the line ring at the other end three times and then she answered, voice foggy with sleep.

“Mmmmm . . . hello?”

“Hey, Kiddo, it’s just me. Sorry I woke you.”

“Mmmm . . . Dad?”

“Yeah. Go back to sleep. I just called to let you know I’m safe and sound and . . . to tell you I love you.”

The sleepiness vanished from her voice. “Dad, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Everything’s fine. I’m –”

The lights dimmed again, more this time, and flickered. The phone crackled, the connection starting to breaking up. “. . .ad . . .oo . . .and . . .”

“I can’t hear you, Honey. The connection –”

My phone sounded the three quick beeps of a dropped call. The lights came back up, brighter than before, and an alarm chimed from deep within the facility. I started to redial but the phone just displayed the searching for service message. Reggie burst back through the door looking confused and alarmed.

“Something’s gone wrong,” he said. “I’m not sure what, but you’d better go back to the front entrance for now.”

I slipped the phone in my pocket and started to stand.

The world turned white, unbearably hot. The thundering roar of dying atoms and molecules tore through every nerve in my body and drowned out my scream of agony, and all I could think was, The Event Wave!

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 52

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 52

Chapter 28

          For several days, Samson’s end was never very far from the front of Simon’s mind. He would worry at the tale like a dog with a scrap of bone. How could a hero be so stupid? If Samson was God’s hero, why did God let him fall the way he did? Wouldn’t it have been better for the people if he had beaten the Philistines instead of being captured?

          Never far from those thoughts was the reminder that so many people called Hans “the Samson of Magdeburg,” which in turn would remind him of what Lieutenant Chieske had told him might result from Hans’ boxing career. As soon as those thoughts crossed his mind, he would shake his head violently and do anything he could to change what he was thinking about. But eventually his thoughts would circle back to Samson and the cycle would start over again.

And so Simon found himself walking by St. Jacob’s church, the Filialkirche that served the poorest district of Magdeburg. Thoughts of Samson were running through his brain as he looked in the doorway to the shadowy interior of the church.

Simon had not attended church since before the sack of the city by Pappenheim’s troops. But now, for the first time in what was literally years, Simon felt an urge to enter a church; this church, in the most down-trodden area of the Magdeburg that was being resurrected from the ashes of the old city. With hesitance he walked inside and stood in the shadows, waiting for his eyes to adjust. After a few moments, he stepped forward with care, setting his feet down so that there was little noise as he made his way down the center. About half-way down, where he was just beginning to make out the details of the crucifix hanging on the wall behind the podium, he tripped over the edge of a paving stone that was protruding up from the floor by just enough to catch the toe of his shoe. Only by great exertion did he manage to keep himself from stretching his length on the floor. The resulting noise echoed through the building.

“Who’s there?”

Simon froze. If he’d known there was anyone in the church, he wouldn’t have entered. What to do?

There was a shuffling sound as a figure moved from the front of the nave into a beam of light from one of the few windows. “Who’s there?” The voice was that of an old man. Simon relaxed. “Is there something I can do to help you?”

“No,” Simon replied. “Um, I just . . . I was just passing by . . . and, um . . .”

“And you wanted to see the inside of the church?” The speaker resolved into the figure of a stooped old man with flowing white hair and beard and dressed in rusty black clothes.

“Well . . .”

“It’s all right, son. There is nothing happening today. The wedding that was scheduled for this afternoon has been postponed.”

The smile on the old man’s face prompted Simon to ask, “Why?”

The old man chuckled. “Well, it seems that the bride’s mother invited the groom to dine with the family, and fixed a special dish. In the middle of the night the poor man awoke with stomach pains, and could not even clamber out of the bed before his bowels released. I understand it was rather noxious.”

Simon giggled.

“Well may you laugh, boy. But the groom accused his mother-in-law-to-be of attempting to poison him, and his betrothed began throwing everything at him that she could get her hands on because of the insult dealt her mother.”

“So, they are not going to wed?” Simon said around another giggle about to escape.

“No, they will probably marry after the heat of everyone’s anger cools off. But I wager it will be some time before the groom eats his bride’s mother’s cooking again.”

That did it. Simon’s giggle escaped, followed by several chortles and even a guffaw or two. When his hilarity began to settle, the old man spoke up again.

“Did you come just to hear the latest gossip from an old preacher, lad? Or did you have some question on your heart?”

“Well . . .” Simon began, dragging the word out. The old man smiled encouragingly. “. . . it’s Samson, you see.”

“Ah, Samson,” the old man nodded. He gestured with a gnarled hand. “Come, let us sit and discuss Samson.” When they had settled on the steps leading up to the podium, he faced Simon with faded blue eyes framed with wrinkles peering out from between his bushy white eyebrows and his beard.

“So, lad . . . what is your name.”

“Simon, sir.”

“And I am Pastor Gruber.” He nodded. “So, Simon, which Samson are we to talk about?”

Simon was perplexed. “You mean there is more than one?”

The old pastor gave a hearty chuckle. “I meant did you want to talk about the Samson of the Bible or some other Samson?”

“The one in the Bible, please, sir.”

“Do you have a question, then?”

“Well . . .” Simon hesitated, then poured out in a rush, “why was Samson such a fool? Why could he not see that Delilah was playing with him? Why did he tell her his secret so she could tell the Philistines and they could capture and blind him?” He stopped, breathless.

Pastor Gruber reached up and ran rheumatism-twisted fingers through his beard. “Yes, indeed, those are good questions.” At least he wasn’t laughing at him, Simon thought to himself.

 

The Forever Engine – Snippet 01

The Forever Engine – Snippet 01

The Forever Engine

Frank Chadwick

“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

– Robert Oppenheimer, 16 July, 1945,

(quoting the Hindu scripture, Bahagvad Gita,

upon seeing the Trinity atomic bomb test)

 

ONE

August 2, 2018, Wessex, England

Reggie Llewellyn was the most casual killer I ever met, but I didn’t hold that against him. If I’d known he was behind the trip to England, you couldn’t have gotten me on the plane at gunpoint — not because of who he was, but what he represented. But I didn’t know. Not until it was too late.

My internal alarm started sounding from the moment I walked in the front entrance of WHECOL — the Wessex High Energy Collider facility. I expected an overweight, white-shirted rent-a-cop guarding a civilian research complex out in the sleepy English countryside. Instead I faced four hard-eyed soldiers dressed in camo’ fatigues and packing assault rifles. Their stares followed me in unison as I crossed the polished marble floor, but I looked straight back at them. If they wanted to intimidate someone, they’d have to wait for the next guy through the door.

Well, maybe I was a little intimidated, but the trick is never to show it.

I’d barely cleared security when a greeting echoed through the foyer.

“Jack Fargo! There you are!”

Although I hadn’t heard it for a decade, I recognized Reggie’s voice at once. And I knew nothing here was what it seemed.

We shook hands and Reggie beamed at me. Reggie always beamed — sort of crazy that way. My anxiety at seeing him was mixed up with some pleasure as well, and that surprised me. Lots of surprises that day, and more to come.

Unlike the guards, he wore a pressed service uniform. He wasn’t much different from the young subaltern I’d known in Afghanistan – deeper laugh lines around the eyes, hair clipped shorter, mustache showing some grey in the jet black, and different rank insignia on his shoulder straps. Well, he looked a little jumpy, too, which I’d never seen in him before.

“They made you a major, Reggie? The British empire is doomed.”

“The empire’s been finished for some time,” he said. “If your education system were better over there you might have noticed. How have you been? I was quite sorry to hear about your wife and . . . well . . .”

The sudden tightness in my throat surprised me. “I’m okay. Tough time. My daughter Sarah and I got through it together.”

Reggie nodded in sympathy. “I’m glad to hear that. Well, then . . .” He gestured down the broad marble corridor into the facility and we walked side by side. I didn’t know what was really going on here yet but decided my best bet was to play along with the original premise of my trip and see where that led me.

“So let me get this right,” I said. “You started digging the foundations for a new wing and stumbled on some possible Roman artifacts? Not that I’m complaining, but why fly an historian all the way from Illinois to evaluate a cultural resource site? Isn’t Cambridge around here somewhere?”

“Oxford is closer, actually, but it’s a fair question. Some discretion in this matter is required. When I realized we might have need of someone conversant with ancient history, I recalled that you are a very discreet fellow. More than that, I know you will tell me the truth, with neither fear nor favor. You are honest — to a fault, as I recall.”

“So I’ve been told. Thank god for academic tenure, huh?”

“Yes. We don’t have that in the Army. Fortunately, excessive honesty is not a failing from which I suffer.”

He grinned that toothy grin, the one that looked like a tiger about to make a kill. Reggie and I had worked together well a long time ago, but there were good reasons I’d chosen academia instead of a more active career. These days my most vicious fights were over who was going to be the next departmental chair. Reggie knew a surprising amount about my post-military career. That made me nervous.

We stopped in an open, well-lit, but deserted office area.

“The technical staff is preparing for another test,” Reggie explained. “We do these mostly at night, when the clerical staff is gone.”

He studied me for a moment, as if deciding how to open the conversation. He took a clear plastic coin case from his trouser pocket and handed it to me.

“Give me your professional opinion of this.”

Since the Brits had brought me a long way at some expense, I took my time studying the coin, but I pegged it in about two seconds.

“Roman silver denarius, first century CE, reign of Emperor Galba. Supposedly.”

“Supposedly?”

“Well, it’s counterfeit – a really good one, too good, actually. It looks as if it were struck last year, not over nineteen hundred years ago.”

“But other than that you’d say it was authentic?” he asked.

“No. The inscription places it from the third year of the reign of Galba. The thing is, Galba’s reign only lasted about seven months before he was killed and replaced by Otho.”

I handed the coin back.

“Weren’t coins ever struck . . . in anticipation of an event?” he asked.

“Not a couple years in anticipation, and especially by Galba. About the only thing memorable about him was his stinginess.”

“You’re certain, Jack? I brought you in on this because people tell me you’re one of the top men on Roman coins these days. I need to know. Are you absolutely certain?”

“Yup, one hundred per cent.”

Lost in thought, Reggie frowned at the coin in his hand and said nothing.

“What gives?” I said. “You didn’t fly me all the way here from Chicago to tell you what any Roman numismatist could.”

“It is not counterfeit.”

I started to insist otherwise, but stopped. What was an American historian really doing in a British high-energy physics lab guarded by armed soldiers, looking at a phony silver coin that wasn’t phony? Had to be, but wasn’t. Reggie wasn’t worried about disturbing a cultural resource site, and suddenly I had absolutely no curiosity about what he really wanted.

“Well . . .  sorry I couldn’t be more help. Give me a ring next time you’re in the States, Reggie, and I’ll buy you a drink. I can find my own way out.”

He laughed. “You know it’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is, because I don’t know anything yet, and I intend to keep it that way. You asked for my professional opinion, I gave it to you. Adios muchacho.”

“It is not counterfeit.”

“Oh, fuck you, Reggie! My daughter starts her freshman year of college in three weeks. I don’t know what sort of cloak and dagger Indiana Jones bullshit you’ve got going on here, but whatever it is, it’s not my department. I used to be an Army translator. That’s it. Now I’m an historian and a single parent, and I have things that need doing. You aren’t on my list.”

“Of course I understand how you must feel, Jack. But before you say anything else, why not have a seat and read these papers? Please.”

He held out a folder with the seal of the U.S. Department of the Army.

Son of a bitch! I’d been set up.

I snatched it, sat at an empty desk, and found nothing surprising in the folder: my change of status from unassigned reserve to active duty with a pay grade of W-4, recertification of my top secret security clearance, and orders assigning me to temporary duty with Wimbish Detachment, Military Provost Guard Service, Major Reginald Llewellyn commanding.

Provost Guard Service my ass. Reggie was SAS – the British elite special operations force — and I figured the four goons at the front door were as well.

The last document was the British Official Secrets Act form. I scribbled my signature, the date, and handed the folder back.

“I’m out of the world-fixing business, Reggie. If I’m not back in time to take Sarah to college, I will have your ass, SAS or not.”

He beamed and took the folder.

“Imagine how terrified that makes me!” Then the smile left his face. “The question of who would actually have whose ass may be academic, however. What did you just call it? The world-fixing business? Believe me Jack, you do not appreciate how apropos a term that is. If we are not successful here, there is a distinct possibility our world as we know it will not survive.”

I studied him for a moment but he didn’t look as if he was trying to snow me. He looked a little frightened. I’d never seen him look frightened before. “Okay, you’ve got my attention. Here’s the deal: I’ll help you out on this, but I will not, under any circumstances, do anything I will be ashamed to tell my daughter. Is that understood?”

“Assuming we live through this I wouldn’t recommend telling her anything, old man. The Official Secrets Act –”

“Fuck the Official Secrets Act.”

His eyebrows rose a bit at that, but then he smiled ruefully.

“Very well, conditions understood and accepted.  And you’ll be happy to know that we won’t be jetting anywhere to do our work, or have any annoying people shooting at us. That is not the sort of danger we face. No one knows what we are doing here.”

“Yeah, including me. So what are you doing?”

He sat in the chair beside the desk and looked at me for a moment.

“It’s . . . something of a time machine, I suppose,” he said.

“A time machine? Bullshit.”

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 51

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 51

“That’s not exactly what I imagined when you said ‘cab’.”

“Heavy wagon, light wagon, large cart, small cart, everyone just calls them ‘cabs’,” Franz said. “Something we picked up from you up-timers.”

          “As long as it saves my feet and gets me and my duffle where I want to go faster than walking, you could call it a Range Rover for all I care,” the music teacher said as he carefully placed his case on the floor of the cart. After he clambered in, he kept the case between his two feet.

Franz tossed the other bag into the cart, then climbed up to sit opposite Atwood.

“Where to, Mac?” the cab driver tossed over his shoulder in understandable English.

“9 Musikstrasse. Sylwesterhaus.”

“Got it. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

With that the driver shook the reins and clucked to the pony, which leaned into his collar and harness to start the cart rolling with a lurch.

Atwood wasted no time in asking the question that Franz expected to hear from him. “So, how are things with Marla?”

Since Atwood was one of Marla’s long acquaintances, Franz didn’t brush him off with a perfunctory response. “We were very worried about her for some time after we lost the baby, but now she is almost her old self again. Some days are better than others, of course,” he shrugged, “and she is still a bit . . . fragile, you might say. But all things considered, and by the grace of God, she is doing well.”

“Good,” Atwood said quietly. “That’s good to hear.”

They rode in silence, surrounded by the noise of Greater Magdeburg as the driver directed his pony through the crowded streets with skill, a certain amount of panache, and a great deal of vulgarity of tongue which he unleashed on anyone who even looked as if they might get in his way.

Atwood laughed again. “He reminds me of the cabbie I got in my last trip to New York City. I guess they’re a universal breed.”

Franz chuckled. “That may well be. I know they sprang from the ground almost immediately in the greater city, rather like Mayor Gericke had sown dragon’s teeth in the lands round about.”

Atwood leaned forward, elbows on knees. “So, enough chit-chat. What’s this all about?”

Typical up-timer bluntness, Franz thought to himself. No dancing around a topic with this man.

“It is Marla’s idea, and she has seized upon it with a passion as strong as any I have ever seen from her.”

The up-timer’s eyebrows rose and his lips pursed for a moment before he spoke.

“That would be saying something, I believe. Ever since I’ve known her, that girl could be so single-minded at times she would border on obsession.”

“Obsession.” Franz turned that word around and around in his mind. “I would judge she is not obsessed . . . yet.” He shrugged again. “But single-minded? Oh, yes.”

“She didn’t tell me in the telegrams what she was planning on performing.”

Franz felt a wry smile cross his face. “She has decided to sing Do You Hear the People Sing?” He paused for a moment. “In German, mind you.”

Atwood sat back. “From Les Miserables?”

Franz nodded.

“Seriously?

Franz nodded again.

“Does she realize what she’s letting herself in for, especially right now?”

Franz couldn’t help it; he burst out laughing. After a few moments, he sobered again. “Ah, friend Atwood, that is the question everyone asks. And the answer is, yes, she understands what the consequences could be. But that is part of what is driving her, you see, the fact that such consequences are even possible.”

“Hmm.” Atwood crossed his arms and thought for a moment. “Okay, I can see that. And I understand her telegrams a little better now. So it’s damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead, huh?”

Franz didn’t understand the full import of Atwood’s allusion, but he got the general idea. “Indeed. In two nights at the Green Horse Tavern, Marla intends to cause a turmoil in the city, in the province, and even unto the entire USE.”

“All right,” Atwood said as the cabbie pulled the pony to a stop in front of Franz’s house. “I’ve come all this way; I’ll see it through.”

They swung down from the back of the cart. Franz hung back to pay the driver as the door to the house swung open and Marla stepped through to greet her friend and erstwhile teacher.

****

          “Freeze!” Honister snapped. The watch patrolman stopped in surprise, his fingers but a fraction of an inch from picking up the white object that had attracted his attention. “Stand up and back away.”

Honister looked around for a moment. “Herr Frost! Over here, please,”

Dan was at his side in a moment. “What is it, Karl?”

Honister just pointed at the ground in front of him, and what was sitting in the shelter of several bits of charcoaled timber.

“Son of a . . .” Dan breathed after a pause. “Good catch, Karl. Now, get the photographer over here. I want pictures before we even think about touching anything.”

The photographer stepped through the ashes, and after judging the light began taking pictures of the evidence.

“So did I see what I think I saw?” Karl asked Dan in a low tone as they watched the photographer.

“I’m afraid so. It appears I may have been wrong.”

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 50

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 50

“Gather round, men.” Gotthilf waited until they had circled around him. “Okay, here’s the word. Walk single file through the scene over the steps that we made in the ashes until you get to where Herr Frost and Lieutenant Chieske are standing. Once you’re there, spread out where Herr Frost tells you to and start looking at the ground. Anything that is not ash or a bit of burnt wood, stand still and call out. Either Herr Frost or Detective Honister will come check it out. Don’t move again until they tell you to. Everyone got that?”

          Heads nodded all around the circle.

“Good. Get out there.”

Honister stepped up beside Gotthilf as the watchmen started down the path.

“So what are we really looking for?”

Gotthilf turned his head toward the other detective. “Herr Frost will not rule that this fire was not arson without a detailed examination of the scene. This is the fastest way to do that. You are looking for anything that looks as if it might have started a fire: a match, gun powder, a magnifying lens; anything at all that is not wood or ash needs to be examined.”

Honister’s father and Gotthilf’s had occasionally joined forces on business dealings, so the two young men were slightly acquainted with each other even before they both ended up in the detective group.

Gotthilf smiled a bit as he observed the other man’s clothing. Honister was a bit on the dapper side, and he had dressed especially so today.

“You are going to wish you had dressed differently before the morning is out.”

Honister gave a rueful nod, then asked. “So what do you think?”

For all that Gotthilf was the youngest detective in the Magdeburg Polizei, he was well-respected by his peers; a respect he had earned, he admitted to himself.

“What do I think? Honestly, I don’t know what to think . . . but something about this fire does not feel right.”

Honister stared at him for a moment, gave another nod, and touched the brim of his hat with a finger before turning and following the watchmen into the crime scene.

Gotthilf waited where he was. After a couple of minutes, he could see Byron make one last comment to Herr Frost and then head his direction. “Back to Metzger?” he asked when his partner stood beside him taking futile swipes at the fine particles of ash clinging to his clothing.

Byron straightened. “Yep. Back to Metzger.”

****

          Stephan Burckardt sighed as he tied a ribbon around a file folder and carried it from his desk to the filing cabinet in the corner. It was one of Master Schmidt’s special files — as the red ribbon color indicated — one of the files that only Stephan and the Master were supposed to see. The men who updated the regular ledgers knew that they weren’t supposed to touch any folder tied up with a red ribbon. In fact, Master Schmidt had made it very clear that anyone other than Stephan who tried to look in the red ribbon files had better leave Magdeburg. And those who had been in the office for very long took that statement seriously.

He turned away from the cabinet after locking it. To be honest, he hadn’t seen anything in those folders that was particularly risky. Nothing that couldn’t be found in any master merchant’s files, he supposed, based on things he’d heard other secretaries and accountants say. But Master Schmidt’s rules were iron hard.

Stephan tested the door to Master Schmidt’s office. Locked, as usual. The master never forgot to lock it. He closed and locked the door to his office, walked down the hall and out the building, then locked the front door.

Dark again. It had been so long since Stephan had seen the sun. Master Schmidt demanded he open the building just as the pre-dawn light was filtering into the eastern sky, and he very seldom got to leave before dusk was well settled. He turned up his collar, shoved his hands in his coat pockets, and trudged down the street.

****

          Franz was waiting when the river boat from Halle tied up at the dock and threw its gangplank up. Two scruffy looking men, one swinging a live chicken by its feet, disembarked first. Then the man he was waiting for appeared, treading with care up the springy plank. Franz didn’t blame him for the care, because the case the man was carrying was absolutely irreplaceable up-time technology. Once the passenger had both feet on the ground, Franz stepped forward.

“Herr Cochran, I see you made it safe and sound.”

Atwood Cochran — music teacher, guitarist, radio personality, and, not least, friend — grinned at him. “Don’t call me that, Franz. People calling me ‘Herr’ is like calling me ‘Sir’ — I look around for my dad.”

Franz returned the other man’s grin. “Well enough, Atwood. Let me take one of those bags,” and he reached for one.

Atwood hastily handed him the other bag. “I’ll keep this one, if you don’t mind. It’s not that I don’t trust you, or anything, it’s just that . . .”

Franz laughed. “You would not trust your own mother with that recording equipment right now, admit it.”

Atwood laughed, and said, “You’re right.”

“This way,” Franz motioned. “We should be able to catch a cab pretty quickly.”

Atwood followed him over to the nearby street. When a pony cart stopped in response to Franz’s hail, he chuckled.

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 49

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 49

Chapter 27

          Ciclope and Pietro were back in that same tavern. It was still filled with smoky haze from the fireplace at one end of the room. Ciclope missed the old man and his pipe, though. It would have made the haze a bit sweeter.

          They bought their ale, then looked for a table. The one they used last time was occupied, but they found another where they could put their backs against a wall and watch the door.

Ciclope tried his ale. It hadn’t improved in their absence. It still tasted of mold and dirt. If he didn’t know any better, he’d have sworn there was a bit of stable straw floating on top of it.

“So, when does he show up?” Pietro asked.

“Don’t start that,” Ciclope said. “Same as last time. The man will be here when he gets here.”

And in fact, it wasn’t long before their ‘patron’, wearing what looked to be the same ill-fitting clothes slipped into the chair beside Pietro.

“That was a good start,” he said without wasting any time. “What will you do next?”

Ciclope took advantage of the moment to study him some more. His German was the local dialect, and under the baggy and slovenly clothes he was still too neat and clean for the kind of man he was attempting to portray. No ink on the fingers, so he was well-to-do enough to pay someone to do his writing. No hint of perfume. He didn’t walk forthright like a soldier, nor like an absent-minded scholar. So, he was a burgher, a merchant of some kind.

The ‘patron’ shifted on his chair, and Ciclope set his thoughts aside for the moment. “Well, we can’t do the trick with the wood again, if for no other reason than they don’t have much of it left right now. Maybe after they rebuild their stocks.”

“I do not want them to ‘rebuild their stocks’ the other man hissed. “I want them ruined now!”

Ciclope raised his hand. “Calmly, calmly, boss. It does no good if you attract attention, now does it?” He drank off the last of his ale, suppressing a shudder at the taste.

Setting the mug down, he began running a finger around its rim.

“We have started weakening scaffolding. There should be some falls soon. We’ve also started rumors that the place is unlucky. Between the two, the workmen should start getting goosy soon, and they’ll start drifting away.”

“I want them ruined!” the man insisted in a whisper.

“There’s only so much we can do at one time, boss,” Pietro said.

“He’s right,” Ciclope confirmed. “We can’t pop a big thing every week. They would start looking for people right away.”

The ‘patron’s’ mouth twisted. “Very well,” he said in a low tone. “But I want to see results soon.”

“You will, boss,” Ciclope assured him. “You will.”

****

          Clouds of fine dust arose from the ash in the hospital construction site as they walked through the wood yard, stinging Gotthilf’s eyes and coating his tongue, giving the flavor of smoke to every breath he took. He followed Byron along with Karl Honister, the detective who was being given charge of the investigation. They all trod carefully through the destruction wrought by the fire. He looked up to see Dan Frost waving from the bucket he was standing in. Said bucket was thirty feet in the air at the end of a chain lifted by the derrick of the steam crane. The former Grantville police chief was now an independent consultant on policing and investigation. Luckily, he’d been available right after the fire happened, and quickly responded to Mayor Gericke’s call.

“He says more to the right,” he reported.

“I guess Dan can see the burn pattern better from up there than from ground level,” Byron said as he adjusted his heading in the desired direction. “That’s good, because the sooner we let the builder have access back to this yard, the sooner they’ll quit bugging Mayor Gericke about it.”

Before long they heard a blast from Dan’s old police whistle, his signal to stop. They froze in place, waiting for the crane to lower the former police chief to the ground. In a couple of minutes he joined them, moving to the lead of their little group.

“It’s like I expected,” Dan said as he stepped forward slowly, eyes on the ground. “I never got any formal training in fire and arson investigation, but you pick up stuff by watching the real experts work a case. Anyway, the fire definitely started in this area. We need to see if we can figure out what started it.”

“Are you suspecting arson?” Byron asked.

“If we were still up-time, absolutely. Here and now, no, not really. The whole idea of risk insurance for this kind of project is just starting, so I doubt that the idea of arson for fun and profit has really occurred to anyone yet.” Dan bent over and poked at something on the ground, then straightened without picking it up. “But I still don’t want to rule it out until we’ve checked every bit of this area. So step carefully, gentlemen, and keep your eyes peeled.”

Gotthilf turned and made his way back to the watchmen standing behind the rope that cordoned off the wood yard.

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 48

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 48

“I wouldn’t do that,” Marla protested, in the face of everyone else’s smiles. After a moment, she smiled as well. “All right, but I need more coffee first.” She leaned forward and held her cup out for Mary to refill.

          Settling back with a freshly filled steaming cup wafting warm vapors past her nose, she began. “My main observation is I think it needs more passion and tension, especially between Merlin and Guinevere early on and between Guinevere and Nimue in the last act. Second, the vocal styling is too . . . too restrained, too soft. It needs more bite, more edge to it. The last thing is, am I correct you are thinking of me for the role of Guinevere and Master Andrea,” she nodded at him, “for the role of Nimue?”

“Yep,” Amber replied, “you called it.”

“The music is too similar for those roles,” Marla said. She sipped at the coffee again, trying to get the butterflies in her stomach under control. Despite her acquaintance and friendship with Amber, she felt intimidated by Schütz. She was still getting used to the idea, even two-plus years after she arrived in Magdeburg, that someone who was in the encyclopedia as “The Father of German Music” would value her opinions. “There needs to be a distinct differentiation between the styles, the themes, and the timbre of their music.”

“What do you mean?” Heinrich spoke up, gaze intent on Marla.

“As I read the libretto,” Marla began, then interrupted herself with, “and that’s a near-brilliant piece of work, by the way? Who wrote it?”

“I worked with Johann Gronow,” Amber said. “He’s the editor of –”

“Black Tomcat Magazine,” Marla interjected. “He’s also the friend of Friedrich von Logau, who just worked on a small project for me. They’re both good.”

She finished the coffee and put the cup down, holding up her hand in negation when Mary pointed to the coffee pot again. “Anyway, as I was saying, when I read the libretto, I was hearing Guinevere as earth and fire: very emotional, all strings and brass and percussion. Nimue, on the other hand, came across to me as air: ethereal, not particularly passionate, with woodwinds as her sound.”

“Ah,” Heinrich sighed. He sat in thought for a long moment, then said, “That is what I was missing. I need to contrast those two women more. I see it now, and I see how to rework it.” He gave a seated bow to Marla. “My thanks, Frau Marla. You have been of great assistance.”

Amber flashed a smile at Marla, and she relaxed a bit.

“My turn,” Amber said. “Any thoughts on staging?”

“You’re asking me?” Marla asked in confusion. What is this, pick on Marla day, or something? Where does it say, I’m the expert here? “You’re the professional director and stage manager. I should be asking you.”

“Come on,” Amber insisted. “I know something had to have popped up in your brain. Let me have it.”

“Okay.” Marla thought for a moment. “Only two things at this point in time: first, I think Nimue needs to be played in a very androgynous manner.”

“That won’t be difficult,” Andrea observed from his chair with a chuckle, joining the conversation for the first time. He looked toward Amber. “Much the same thought had occurred to me — make a virtue out of necessity, as it were.” His grin flashed for a moment. “I just hadn’t had time to bring it up yet.”

“Noted.” Amber actually did write it down in a small notebook. “What’s the other thing?”

“Please don’t make the costumes too heavy.”

From there they descended into a detailed discussion of costume designs, proposed staging, etc. It was nearly an hour later that Mary finally brought the conversation to a close.

“All right, we’re good to go then. Master Heinrich will make his revisions as soon as possible, and we’ll get the parts passed out as soon as he does. We’re shooting to begin rehearsals by February 5th, and we have money from a supporter that will get the sets and costumes under way.”

There was a general bustle as the others stood and took their leave. Marla remained seated, staring at the coffee table where the manuscript had been, tired and numb.

There came a touch on her shoulder. She looked up to see Mary there, looking down at her. No words were spoken, but she could see the expression of sympathy on the other woman’s face, and the tears began welling up in her eyes to match the sudden surge of grief from the void under her heart.

Mary took a white linen handkerchief from a pocket and handed it to Marla, then sat down in the chair next to hers and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

Marla wept. She bit down on the handkerchief, but still small moans of grief escaped her. The tears coursed down her cheeks, and she trembled as if she were badly chilled. The thought touched the edge of her mind that she was chilled; not to the bone, but in the soul.

She had no idea how long she mourned within the curve of Mary’s arm. It felt like hours, but doubtless was not more than a few minutes. The tears slowed; her ragged breathing calmed.

Taking the handkerchief from between her teeth, Marla unfolded it and wiped the moisture from her face, rubbing fiercely to remove the feeling of the drying tracks of the tears. Then she clasped it between her hands in her lap.

Mary took her arm from Marla’s shoulder.

“Not many people here know it,” Mary said, “but Tom could have been a second child. I had a miscarriage before I had him.”

Mary’s voice was quiet. There was no sense of claiming some identity in a sisterhood of suffering; no sense of one-upmanship in her words. Just a simple statement of fact. But it was enough that Marla released her clasp and reached a hand out to Mary, who grasped it tightly.

“How . . .” Marla husked, “how do the down-timer women bear it, seeing half or more of their children die?”

“The same way I did,” Mary responded. “One day at a time; one hour at a time; sometimes one minute at a time.”

Marla looked at the older woman, saw the strength in her, and drew on that strength to stiffen her own resolve. She was going to make it through this torrent, some way, somehow.

“Thanks, Mary.”

“Any time, dear. I have lots of handkerchiefs.”

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 47

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 47

Finally the story wound to the now-obvious climax.

That he told her all his heart, and said unto her. There hath not come a razor upon mine head; for I have been a Nazarite unto God from my mother’s womb: if I be shaven, then my strength will go from me, and I shall become weak, and be like any other man.

And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines, saying, Come up this once, for he hath showed me all his heart. Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand.

And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head; and she began to afflict him, and his strength went from him.

And she said, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he awoke out of his sleep, and said, I will go out as at other times before, and shake myself. And he wist not that the Lord was departed from him.

Ursula stopped.

“That can’t be all the story,” Simon exclaimed.

“I thought we could read the rest tomorrow.”

“No!” He leaned forward. “Please, I need to hear what happens.”

She looked at him for a moment, then said, “All right,” and resumed reading. Simon listened as the end of the story rolled out.

But the Philistines took him, and put out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass; and he did grind in the prison house.

Then the lords of the Philistines gathered them together for to offer a great sacrifice unto Dagon their god, and to rejoice: for they said, Our god hath delivered Samson our enemy into our hand. And when the people saw him, they praised their god: for they said, Our god hath delivered into our hands our enemy, and the destroyer of our country, which slew many of us.

And it came to pass, when their hearts were merry, that they said, Call for Samson, that he may make us sport. And they called for Samson out of the prison house; and he made them sport: and they set him between the pillars. And Samson said unto the lad that held him by the hand, Suffer me that I may feel the pillars whereupon the house standeth, that I may lean upon them.

Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the Philistines were there; and there were upon the roof about three thousand men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.

And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

Simon sat back on his stool. He had never imagined it would end that way.

Ursula put her Bible away and took out her embroidery. “Not a very happy ending, is it?”

“No,” Simon muttered.

“I don’t like to read that story much because of that.” She pushed the needle through the cloth. “But sometimes, you know, we need to be reminded that the things we choose to do don’t always end up the way we intend for them to.”

Simon took a deep breath. “Yah. I see that.”

“Good.” Ursula focused on her work.

It was obviously time for him to go find work. He opened the door, but looked back at Ursula before he stepped through. Ursula’s head was bent over her embroidery. She didn’t look up when he left.

****

          “Come in, Marla.” Mary Simpson herself met Marla at the door of Simpsonhaus. “Have a seat, dear. Coffee?”

Marla settled into a chair in Mary’s parlor, nodding to Andrea Abati, Heinrich Schütz, and Amber Higham as she did so.

“Coffee would be nice.” She hunched up a bit in the chair. “It’s still cold outside.” It wasn’t just the cold. Today was not one of her better days, although she had managed to hide that from Franz. He had a major rehearsal with the orchestra today, but he would have called it off if he had seen her starting to waver.

Within moments a cup was passed to her. Marla cradled it in her hands for a few moments to savor the warmth before taking her first sip.

“Ah.” She felt the warmth trickle down her throat and spread through her body. “That helps.”

Marla set her cup on the nearby side table, picked up her document case, and pulled out the manuscript of Arthur Rex. That she placed on the coffee table centered between all the seats. Then she sat back and picked up her coffee cup, still appreciating the warmth of the cup. She really hated being cold. And the warmth helped with her other problem as well.

“So, what do you think?” Amber Higham asked, interlacing one hand’s fingers with those of Heinrich Schütz, her husband.

Marla took a sip before she replied.

“It’s good.” She saw a line appear between Amber’s eyebrows, and hastened to say, “It’s very good.”

“Do I hear a ‘but’ in your voice?” Heinrich asked with a smile.

“Well . . .” Marla dragged the syllable out.

Heinrich chuckled. “Masses I have written, and motets. Opera, however, is a somewhat new thing for me, especially one of this . . . magnitude, shall we say. You, despite your youth, know more of them than I do. So please, give me your thoughts on this. I promise not to rage if you butcher my sacred cow.” He chuckled again.

 

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 46

1636 The Devil’s Opera – Snippet 46

Chapter 26

          Gotthilf sat on the window seat, staring out into the night, trying to scratch the itch in the middle of his mental back. He heard someone move up behind him.

          “A pfennig for your thoughts.”

That was his younger sister Margarethe. Without looking around he held his hand out.

“What?”

“Where’s the pfennig?” he queried.

“Oh! You!” Margarethe slapped his palm. “That’s all the pfennig you will get from me. I think you spend too much time with that up-timer fellow you call your partner.”

Reflected in the small panes of glass he could see multiple images of her sticking her tongue out at him. He spun quickly and ran his palm across her tongue before she could react to his motion.

“Ick!” She jumped back and scrubbed at her mouth with the back of her hand, then stuck her tongue out again as he laughed at her.

After Gotthilf quit chuckling, she said, “No, seriously, what are you thinking about so hard? You haven’t moved from that seat for over an hour.”

“Nothing you can help with, Margarethe.”

He could see her pleased smile at his use of the new nickname she had started using after one of the new up-timer girls at the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls bestowed it on her.

“Maybe I can, maybe I can’t, but we won’t know until you tell me.”

“No,” Gotthilf said, “you can’t help . . .” A sudden realization struck him. “Actually, maybe you can. I met a young woman the other day, a bit older than you, perhaps.”

“Ah,” Margarethe interjected with a sly grin. “Is this something I need to tell Mother or hide from her?”

“Neither,” Gotthilf said, while shuddering a bit from the thought of his busybody mother linking a woman’s name — any woman’s name — to him. “It was in connection with a case we are working, not social at all.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He could see that Margarethe was disappointed there wasn’t some angle she could use to dig at him a little. He continued with, “Anyway, I met this Fräulein, like I said, and she looked familiar to me, but I cannot remember where I have seen her before. I have been wracking my brain for days now, and nothing. It is driving me moon-silly.”

“That’s not a drive, that’s a short putt,” Margarethe spouted.

Gotthilf looked at his sister in disbelief. “What did you just say?”

“Didn’t I say it right? It’s an up-time joke. I learned it from a girl at school. Isn’t it funny?”

“Do you even know what it means?”

Margarethe frowned a little at his lack of reaction. “No.”

Now Gotthilf chuckled a bit. “Margarethe, don’t try to tell up-timer jokes unless you really understand them. You can’t tell them right if you don’t, and depending on the joke you might find yourself in trouble. Besides, I get enough of that from Byron.” He shook his head. “Anyway, before you so rudely interrupted me, I was telling you about the Fräulein. Her name is Ursula Metzgerinin.”

“Metzgerin, Metzgerin,” Margarethe mused. “Ursula . . .” She looked down at the floor, brow wrinkled, mouth pursed. Gotthilf thought about swiping his fingers across her lips, but refrained.

After a moment, she looked up. “There was an older girl in my catechism class a few years ago. Her name was Ursula, and I think her last name started with an M. She only came a few times, then someone said she was going to another church and attending catechism there.”

With that clue, Gotthilf thought back to the times when he walked his sister to catechism. Sure enough, a recollection surfaced of a younger version of Ursula, blonde hair shining, coming out of the church door while he waited on Margarethe.

He jumped to his feet, grabbed Margarethe by the waist and swung her in circles in the air, proclaiming “That’s it!” over her loud protests. He set her feet back on the floor, and flung his arm around her shoulder.

“Thanks, Margarethe. That is a big help.” Their mother appeared in the parlor doorway and motioned them to come to dinner. “You’re a pretty good sister, you know . . . even if you can’t tell a joke.”

“Gotthilf?”

“Yes?”

“What’s a putt?”

****

          For the next several days Ursula was her usual cheerful self — or at least she seemed to be. Simon wasn’t so sure, though. There was a shadow in her eyes, and he thought her eyes followed Hans as he moved around the room more than usual. But her voice was bright and she laughed a lot, so maybe he was imagining it.

One day, after Hans left for his job at the grain factorage, Ursula picked up her Bible as had become their custom. “Well, what shall we read today?”

Simon plopped down on his stool. “Samson. I want to hear about Samson.” He had a desire to know everything there was to know about Samson.

She opened the Bible and started turning pages. “There’s still his last adventure to tell.”

Simon hugged his knees with his one good arm, waiting.

And it came to pass afterward, that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and said unto her, Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lieth, and by what means we may prevail against him, that we may bind him to afflict him: and we will give thee every one of us eleven hundred pieces of silver.

And Delilah said to Samson, Tell me, I pray thee, wherein thy great strength lieth, and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee.

“Don’t listen to her, Samson,” Simon muttered. He could already see the way this story was weaving.

And Samson said unto her, If they bind me with seven green withies that were never dried, then shall I be weak, and be as another man.

Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven green withies which had not been dried, and she bound him with them.

Now there were men lying in wait, abiding with her in the chamber. And she said unto him, The Philistines be upon thee, Samson. And he brake the withies, as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire. So his strength was not known.

Simon listened to Ursula read the story. As Delilah continued to ply Samson and Samson continued to respond to her, it crossed his mind more than once that Samson did not seem very smart.