1636 The Devil's Opera (Ring of Fire) (11 page)

“I don’t know,” said Franz. “I think he did well with the horns on the chancellor.”

Chancellor Oxenstierna had been drawn as a Minotaur figure with sweeping horns; an obvious reference to the inevitable puns on his name that seemed to universally come to mind to both up-timers and down-timers alike. The Ox or
Der Ochse
, either way it referred to a bovine, and this particular figure was dressed in a fancy doublet.

All the figures in the cartoon were labeled. Franz wasn’t sure if it was the artist or the editor that wanted to make sure that nothing was misunderstood, but it still brought a smile to his face.

“Hmm, that’s the emperor lying on the bed,” Marla puzzled out. “But who are all these people kneeling? Holy cow, this guy’s lettering is atrocious.”

“This one is ‘Free Electorate,’” Franz said, pointing to the label. “That one is ‘Freedom of Religion,’ and the other one is ‘Freedom of Speech.’”

“Who’s the girl in the corner by the bed?”

Franz tilted the page, trying to get a better angle on the somewhat muddled drawing. “I think that is supposed to be Princess Kristina.”

“So what is it that he’s got in his hands that he’s aiming at the freedoms?”

“Well, judging from the caption, I think it is a giant scalpel.” The caption read “Perhaps A Little Blood-letting Will Help The Emperor Regain His Senses.”

Marla looked at him. “Scalpel?”

“You know they used to bleed patients?”

“Ick!” Marla thrust the broadsheet into his hands and started down the street. “I don’t get it.”

They spent the next few minutes arguing about whether the drawing made any sense or not, walking along dodging other pedestrians, crossing streets, sidestepping wagons, carts, and the inevitable animal by-products. Wagon drivers were supposed to clean up after their horses, mules or oxen. Whether they did or not often depended on how visible a Committee of Correspondence member was.

Their badinage ended as they stopped before a familiar door. The sign above the door read
Zopff and Sons
, and through the small panes of glass set in the door they could see the printing presses the firm operated. Franz opened the door, and they stepped in, to be greeted by their friend Patroclus.

“Franz! Marla!” He advanced with open hands, albeit somewhat ink stained.

“Don’t touch me,” Marla warned. “Last time you got that ink on me, it took me two days to get it off.”

Patroclus laughed. “All right, I will keep my hands to myself, then. But what brings you to see us? We do not have a commission from you at the moment, do we?”

“Nope,” Marla said. “Although I think the Grantville Music Trust will have the next batch of music to be printed ready before long.”

The younger of the two Zopff sons, Telemachus, came up behind his brother just as she said that. He made a face. “Music. All the fiddly little bits with the notes and stems and flags going just so. I would rather set ten pages of words, even in Roman type, than a single page of music.”

Patroclus landed a backhand on his brother’s biceps. “That music has kept us in sausage and ale the last couple of years, and you should be thankful for it.”

Telemachus made another face and headed back to his press.

“So if you don’t have a commission for us, what is the occasion for your dropping by?” Patroclus asked.

“I need a poet,” Marla said. Patroclus raised an eyebrow, and she continued, “I have a song with English lyrics, and I need them translated into good German. But it can’t just be a literal translation; a few of the lines will need to be modified to fit the modern circumstances. That’s going to take poetic skill. So, I’m hoping you know a man we can contact.”

“Hmm.” Patroclus rubbed his chin, leaving a trace of ink behind. “A poet, who reads up-timer English, and is skilled at his art. And is in Magdeburg. I can think of several who can write doggerel, good enough for that.” He nodded at the broadsheet that Franz was still holding. “But one who is truly worthy of the name poet?” He shook his head. “My mind is empty.”

Telemachus turned around from the typesetting bench he was working at. “Logau might be able to do it.”

Patroclus looked back at his brother. “Who?”

“Friedrich von Logau. You know, the guy who wrote that epigram you like so much:

“Was bringt den Mann zum Amte?

Vermutlich seine Kunst?

Gar selten, was denn anders?

Fast immer Geiz und Gunst.”

Franz saw a hint of confusion on Marla’s face. For all that she was adept at the Amideutsch that was common around Magdeburg and Grantville, and for all that she was better than adequate at the local dialect and in the specialized language of music, poetry was another level of skill she hadn’t fully developed yet. He ran through the epigram in his head one more time, then translated it for her as:

“What brings a man into public office?

Presumably his ability?

Very seldom, so what else?

Almost always, greed and connections.”

“Hah!” Marla’s face lit up. “Okay, I don’t know kielbasa from bratwurst as far as German poetry goes, but if that’s his attitude, I think I like the man.”

“The CoC like him,” Telemachus said before he turned back to his work.

“I can see why. So where do I find him?” Marla turned back to Patroclus.

“He has been writing things for the
Times-Journal
.” He shrugged. “Start with them.”

* * *

Ciclope and Pietro moved to the side of the road and stopped to rest their horses. Magdeburg had been in sight in the distance for some time, but Ciclope saw no reason to exhaust the animals. They were pretty worn as it was. It had been a long fast ride from Venice, and there had not been much grain available for a lot of the way. And truth to tell, neither he nor Pietro were the most accomplished riders around, although they were somewhat better now than they were when they began the ride. Now that the end was in sight, he didn’t begrudge their mounts a few moments of rest.

“So tell me again, One-Eye,” Pietro muttered, “what are we going to be doing here? And why did we come all the way from Venice to do it?”

Ciclope hardly ever thought of his birth name. For years, ever since he had lost his left eye in a desperate fight, he had gone by the Italian form of Cyclops. It piqued his sense of humor; he was a solid bulk of a man, but not inordinately large, and the thought of being compared to a giant did make him smile a bit every now and then.

“Pietro, how many times do I have to tell you…”

“One more time. What are we going to be doing?”

Ciclope sighed. “I don’t know. All I know is the boss got a request to send two men to Magdeburg who will not be known to the residents nor to the up-timers from Grantville, and who ‘know how to handle difficult situations.’”

“Sounds to me like somebody is trying to be clever.” Pietro spat to the off side of his horse.

“Perhaps,” Ciclope nodded. “But the boss owes a favor to the guy who sent the request, so here we are. And we don’t dare leave without doing the job.”

Pietro shuddered. “Nay. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in this land of barbarians, and if we were to go south of the Alps back to civilized country, the boss would find us.”

Ciclope reached up and adjusted his eye patch. “Sooner we get into town, meet the new boss, and get the job done, the sooner we can get back to Venice.”

“Let’s go, then.”

The two men urged their horses back into motion, and headed for the capital of the USE.

Chapter 12

Friedrich von Logau sat in Walcha’s Coffee House, doodling in his pocket notebook while his friends argued. Gathered around the table was a group of poets and writers from all over Germany, there to seek patrons and to partake of the capital city’s
élan.

“Lovecraft was the greater writer,” intoned Karl Seelbach, Friedrich’s fellow Silesian. Karl then proceeded to slurp his coffee, which evoked winces all around the table.

Friedrich drew loops around his latest attempt at an epigram.

In danger and great need,

Irresolution brings destruction.

It was rough, and he wasn’t satisfied with it yet. So he listened to his friends while his mind worked under the level of the conversation.

“You’ve drunk so much coffee your head is addled,” Johann Gronow retorted. “Anyone with a wit can clearly tell that Poe’s skills were far superior to Lovecraft’s, although he didn’t write as much. Isn’t that right, Friedrich?”

Gronow’s Hamburg accent grated on Friedrich’s Silesian ear just a bit, but he ignored it. “Don’t be dragging me into your interminable verbal duels over which up-time author of old grandmother tales is superior.”

Friedrich spoke with a smile, as he was the one who had put Gronow on the trail of both authors, with the end result being the creation of
Der schwartzer Kater—Eine Zeitschrift
. Or
Black Tomcat Magazine
, as the up-timers more succinctly called it. Gronow was the publisher/editor of the two issues it had done so far, and his oft-spoken mission was to further the development of the art of macabre story-telling in German. Friedrich had it on good authority that Johann had written all of the first issue and most of the second issue except for the translations of two Poe stories.

His mind raised a thought at that moment, and he crossed out “Irresolution” and replaced it with “Compromise.” He surveyed the result. Better, but still not quite right, somehow.

A sudden silence at the table caused Friedrich to look up. His friends were all looking behind him. “I wonder what
she
wants?” Johannes Plavius said. Friedrich turned in his chair and draped an arm across its back.

He knew who the woman was that approached with her husband shadowing her as he usually did. No one could move in the middle or upper circles of Magdeburg and not know—or at least know of—Marla Linder. Depending on one’s beliefs about music, she was either famous or notorious, but she was never ignored. All agreed that her voice was spectacular.

Walcha’s Coffee House was not one of her usual haunts. Friedrich watched her walk toward their table. Tall, with long black hair pulled back into a “pony-tail,” as up-timers called that odd hairstyle, she walked with assurance, as if she was so certain of herself and her place that she had no doubt of what she was doing. Which she probably didn’t, he thought before he echoed Plavius’ thoughts. “I wonder what she wants with
us
?”

“I believe we are about to find out,” Plavius muttered.

Frau Linder came to a halt just beyond Friedrich’s reach. “Good afternoon,
meine Herren.
” Her Amideutsch had the unmistakable flavor of the Grantville up-timers, for all that her pronunciation was impeccable. Something about the tonal quality of the voice, he mused.

Greetings rumbled from most of the circle at the table. Friedrich contented himself with a nod of the head.

“I’m looking for Friedrich von Logau.”

Although Friedrich did not react, he felt the gazes of his friends fix on him, and one of them must have pointed, for Frau Linder’s eyes settled on him. A feeling not unlike staring at the muzzle of a loaded gun entered his mind.

“Herr Logau, I am Marla Linder, and this is my husband, Franz Sylwester.” Herr Sylwester nodded his head in turn.

“I know who you are, Frau Linder. How could I not?” He felt the corner of his mouth quirk upward.

That seemed to fluster her for a moment, but she clasped her hands around the tube of paper she carried and settled. “I—we—have need of a poet. You have been highly recommended to us. Herr Adalbert, the editor at the
Times-Journal
, told us we might find you here.”

“You have need of a poet.” Friedrich made it a statement, not a question, and his voice was very dry.

“Yes. I have a song lyric written in up-time English that I need translated into German.”

“A…song.” Friedrich had trouble believing what he was hearing. He frowned. “You want me to translate?”

Frau Linder started to nod, then shook her head, which made for a very odd motion.

“Not just translate. I don’t want a word for word literal translation. I need a German’s poet’s translations of the…the thoughts behind the English words. I need you to make the German lyrics sing like the English ones do.”

“Ah.” That was different. That, he could understand.

Friedrich had done some translating in his time. Most poets and men of letters did at one time or another in their careers. Translating words was usually easy. Translating the thought was always the challenge.

He held out his hand. “Let me see it.”

Frau Linder placed the paper cylinder in his hand. He unrolled it, and started scanning the text. Midway through, he stopped, went back to the beginning, and read through again slowly, letting each word register in his mind.

He looked up at the woman. “I will not insult you by asking if you know what you are asking. But do you realize the kind of storm this could raise? Especially now?”

Frau Linder returned a grin that reminded him of nothing more than a feral cat showing its fangs. “Oh, I intend for it to do that,” she breathed. “Exactly that.” Her tone was not loud, but every man at the table heard it, and Friedrich felt the hair on his neck rise.

Friedrich looked at the short length of lines on the page. He read through them again, then folded the paper and put it in his inside coat pocket.

“Where can I reach you?”

“Messages can reach me at the Duchess Elisabeth Sofie Secondary School for Girls, at the Royal Academy of Music, or at our home.” Herr Sylwester handed his wife a card, which she in turn handed to Friedrich. He looked at the address, then tucked that card into the same pocket.

“Give me a week.”